There are two events that are pressing on our minds right now here in our communities. First, some are still pulling out of the devastation and others are pulling out of the inconvenience of Sandy which hit us last week. Second, today our nation goes to the polls to elect a new president among many other leaders and referendums.
In Scripture God clearly shepherds us on both of these occurrences. As God’s children we know that God is good in everything He does; He is righteous; He is merciful; He is loving, He is kind; and He is faithful. And because we know these truths about God we can accept the Scripture’s teaching about God’s sovereignty with great comfort and faith. The reality that the righteous merciful, loving, kind, and faithful God is sovereign enables us to respond to both the storm and election in confident faith that God remains on His throne.
We have been memorizing Isaiah 45:7 which reminds us that God was sovereign even over Sandy: “The One forming light and creating darkness, Causing well-being and creating calamity; I am the LORD who does all these.”
The following verses are helpful for us to meditate upon as we are on the brink of choosing our next president. Whoever is elected will be elected according to God’s sovereign plan and though we consider the next four years and realize that our knowledge of them are best described as ignorant, we know that God’s knowledge of them is best described not as merely knowing them, but ruling over them. By faith accept these verses about God’s rule even over the rulers that rule us:
1 Samuel 2:7 “The LORD makes poor and rich; He brings low, He also exalts.
Isaiah 40:23-24 He it is who reduces rulers to nothing, Who makes the judges of the earth meaningless. 24 Scarcely have they been planted, Scarcely have they been sown, Scarcely has their stock taken root in the earth, But He merely blows on them, and they wither, And the storm carries them away like stubble.
Daniel 2:21 “It is He who changes the times and the epochs; He removes kings and establishes kings; He gives wisdom to wise men And knowledge to men of understanding.
Daniel 2:37-38 37 “You, O king, are the king of kings, to whom the God of heaven has given the kingdom, the power, the strength and the glory; 38 and wherever the sons of men dwell, or the beasts of the field, or the birds of the sky, He has given them into your hand and has caused you to rule over them all. You are the head of gold.
Daniel 4:24-25 this is the interpretation, O king, and this is the decree of the Most High, which has come upon my lord the king: 25 that you be driven away from mankind and your dwelling place be with the beasts of the field, and you be given grass to eat like cattle and be drenched with the dew of heaven; and seven periods of time will pass over you, until you recognize that the Most High is ruler over the realm of mankind and bestows it on whomever He wishes.
Psalm 75:6-7 For not from the east, nor from the west, Nor from the desert comes exaltation; 7 But God is the Judge; He puts down one and exalts another.