Dial In with Jonny Ardavanis - The Sovereignty of God: Finding Peace in a Chaotic World | Jonny Ardavanis

Episode Date: March 25, 2025

In this powerful episode of the Dial In Podcast, Jonny Ardavanis dives deep into the sovereignty of God - one of the most profound and comforting doctrines in Scripture. Discover how God's supreme authority extends over nations, nature, time, suffering, Satan, and your personal life.Learn why God's sovereignty gives value to all His other attributes and provides an unshakable foundation for Christians facing life's challenges. From John Bunyan writing Pilgrim's Progress in prison to Joseph's declaration that "what you meant for evil, God meant for good," this episode explores how understanding God's sovereignty leads to genuine peace and trust.Whether you're struggling with anxiety about world events, personal hardship, or theological questions about God's control and human responsibility, this conversation offers biblical insight and practical application. Subscribe for more deep theological discussions made accessible for everyday faith.Sign Up for Dial In Ministries NewsletterWatch VideosVisit the Website Buy Consider the LiliesFollow on Instagram

If God were good, but unable to execute his goodness, what good would his goodness be? If God were wise, knew the best plan, but was unable to execute on his wisdom, what good would his wisdom be? And so we find there that God's sovereignty is so critical for any of his other attributes to have any value. If God is sovereign over nations, if he's sovereign over nature, if he's sovereign over time, if he's sovereign over suffering, if he's sovereign over Satan and evil, then you can know for sure that God is sovereign over your life. All right. Well, welcome back to another episode of the Dial-In Podcast. I'm Hank Bowen

sitting here with Johnny Artivans. Johnny, how are you doing this afternoon? Doing well, man. Thanks for being here. You know, one of the things that we were talking about before we pressed play on this is that in this episode, we're going to talk about the sovereignty of God. It's a big subject, but it's worth our examination. In the book that I wrote, Consider the Lilies, this was the hardest chapter to write, the longest chapter. And it's probably the most important theme that really anybody can understand that's walking through difficulty or pain or suffering or sorrow is the reality that God is sovereign. Now you grew up in the church, maybe just from like your perspective when you're in the church growing up or even at this moment, like what would be your initial conception of the sovereignty of God? His power over all things, or maybe all areas of dominion.

Yeah, and I think that would be general, you know, your idea about God's sovereignty. Most people would have some sort of an idea that God's in control. But I want to jump into that topic today because it's replete throughout the scripture. One of the stories I start with in the book is the story of John Bunyan. If you know John Bunyan, he wrote the second best-selling book in American history, The Pilgrim's Progress. He writes a story that's an allegory of the Christian life. And I used to wonder how he could write about these creatures such as giant despair or doubting castle or the slew of despondency, which is just depression. But I realized that he didn't write this book from a corner office. He wrote this book from his prison cell that was his home for 12 years. He was pushed into prison, forced into prison for preaching the gospel. And he was allowed to go

whenever he wanted, as long as he promised never to preach the gospel again. So he was in jail and it came at a difficult time in his life. His wife had just died a year before, left him with multiple kids, one of which was blind. He then got remarried and that new wife was, I think, nine months pregnant. He's sent into jail and then she gives birth to a stillborn child. And so you got to think through it. His children are still grieving the loss of their mother. His new wife is grieving the loss of their new child. And here is John Bunyan in a prison cell for more than a decade, wondering about his children, one of which, as I mentioned, was blind. did, where is God at times like these? You know, is God really there? Is he really in control? Maybe you've walked through something difficult, which I know you have. People say things like that. God's in control. But is that just Christian mumbo jumbo? But the reality is, as we look to the life of John Bunyan, the truth of God that gave him solidity and stability and peace in the midst

of this difficult time was the anchor we're gonna look at today. And that's the sovereignty of God. This is deep theology in a sense, but it's necessary for any Christian to understand when you look at the news or when you look at your own biography, right? Like we could turn on our phones and it's enemy nations are doing this.

Kingdoms are tottering. You're walking through your own personal trials. Name them all. Yeah. The economy. But I want to begin to provide a definition of God's sovereignty initially by just reading two verses of scripture. You have them in Isaiah 46 verse nine. I think these two verses provide a perfect definition of God's sovereignty according to God. So read Isaiah 46, verse 9 for a moment. Yeah, it says, Remember the former things long past, for I am God, and there is no other.

I am God, and there is no one like me. I'll pause there for just a moment. God says there are none like me. That's another attribute of God. What would that be? God's holiness, right? God's uniqueness. Yeah, his uniqueness.

There are none like me. When we talk about God's holiness, it means his otherness. And God's proud of that. We've talked about God's jealousy before at church, but that's the fact that God is very proud of the fact that there are none like him. Now, when he goes on to explain that there are none like him, that he is so different from every other supposed creature or supposed deity. He explains it this way. Read verse 10. Declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times, things which have not been done, saying my counsel will be established and I will accomplish all my good pleasure. So bottom line, when God declares his otherness, he declares his sovereignty. He

says, I declare the end from the beginning. Again, God says, I declare the end of what's going to happen before it happens. And he says that my purpose will be established and I will accomplish all my good pleasure. He's dictating what's going to happen. Job 42 verse two, uh, iterates a similar reality. Job says, I iterates a similar reality. Job says, I know that you can do all things and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted. Psalm 115 verse 3, our God is in the heavens. He does whatever he pleases.

Psalm 93 one, Psalm 97 one, Psalm 99 one says, our God reigns. Now, when we think sometimes of kings and kingdoms, you know, you think about the queen and the monarchy and you look at the tabloids and, you know, Prince of Spain. Yeah, exactly. Those figures don't really wield any political power. They pose for tabloids and magazines and Netflix shows. But God's kingship is not one that's figurative.

It's literal in the sense that he's actively ruling and reigning over all creation. He's never caught off guard. He's never surprised. He never has to adapt or revise or call an audible. He's never panicked. But the reality of scripture is that God's sovereignty means he is like a grand composer, orchestrating and ordaining all things to come to pass, to accomplish a plan that is for his glory and for our good. And the reason he knows the future, we just read,

is not because he has a crystal ball, but because he's planning the future. Establishes. And establishing his plan before it even commences. It says he did this before the beginning of time. And if I'm remembering correctly from your book, I think you draw a distinction out to the forefront is that God's sovereignty is actually critical in understanding the rest of his attributes. So maybe talk about that for a second. Well, it provides value for the rest of God's attributes. And I'll explain what I mean by that. And I remember my friend Eric Tonnes explaining this to me. For example, if God were loving, but not sovereign,

what good would his love be? His love would be mere sentimentality. It would be as if God had, you know, he really wanted to do something for you, but he was unable to execute on his predetermined plan. Emotional empathy detached from power. Exactly. If God were good, but unable to execute on his predetermined plan emotional empathy detached from power exactly if god were good but unable to execute his goodness what good would his goodness be if god were wise knew the best plan but was unable to execute on his wisdom what good would his wisdom be and so we find there

that god's sovereignty is so critical for any of his other attributes to have any value and again we don't want to separate God's attributes from another. And we'll talk about this more at the end. God's attributes are not pieces of the pie. He's all of his attributes all of the time in full measure. But the reality is, as R.C. Sproul used to say, if God is not sovereign, God is not God. This is critical.

And so in typical Johnny Art of Fantasy fashion, we're going to look at maybe 72 different ways that God's sovereignty plays in the next 20 minutes. But to frame this up for us, maybe what are the ways we're going to kind of start approaching God's sovereignty? Well, I want to just provide some large buckets or parameters. You know, Psalm 103 verse 19 says, the Lord has established his throne in the heavens and his sovereignty rules over all. Now, I want to look at what exactly is included under that little word all. It matters immensely. If God is sovereign over all, then that means that there is nothing that he is not sovereign over. So just five realms or arenas where God exercises his sovereignty. The first of which is God is sovereign over kings and kingdoms.

We live in a world that's ruled and governed by political powers. So if you're an anxious person and you're looking at the world around you, are you anxious about our country's future? Are you fearful about the plans of enemy nations? The reality of scripture is, and the truth you can find peace and comfort in, is that God rules over every nation, king, and kingdom. I love this verse, and I think you have it in Isaiah chapter 40, verse 24. Just read that for me, Isaiah 40, 24. Yeah, it says, scarcely have been planted, scarcely have been sown, scarcely has their stem taken root in the earth, but he merely blows on them and they wither, and the storm carries them away like stubble.

I love this idea because in Isaiah 40, one of the things that Isaiah is dandelion the most powerful kingdoms on earth with his breath because he's totally sovereign over them. In Daniel 2.21, it says that God removes kings and establishes kings. And it says in Proverbs 21 verse 1 that the king's heart is like a channel of water in the hand of the Lord and he turns it wherever he wishes. Now, in ancient times, kings had no supreme court. There's no legislative body to push back on them. No checks and balances. Yeah, there's no checks and balances.

But God takes even the most stubborn of kings' hearts and he does whatever he wants with them. In the beginning of the book of Daniel, I love these opening two verses. And whenever I teach Daniel, I always want to make these initial two verses its own message. It reads this way in Daniel 1.1.

It says, In the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, came to Jerusalem and besieged it. That's just a fact, right? That's a historical fact. This is the world's report. And this is what we would read in the newspaper. Nebuchadnezzar came and destroyed, you know, Jehoiakim. But then there's this verse 2. It says, And the Lord gave Jehoiakim,

king of Judah, into his hand. This is God's report. This isn't historical. This is theological. One of the things we always talk about as it relates to living a life like Daniel, if you wanna live a life like Daniel with a level of peace and confidence

and courage and boldness, you need to know what Daniel knew from the very beginning. It says in the first verse of the book that bears his name, Nebuchadnezzar came and demolished his hometown, killed his people, destroyed the temple. And then the next verse, it says, what was the Lord actually that was doing all these things? And Daniel's recognizing as a boy and when he writes this book, presumably as an old man, that it was God that was doing this. The exile was not outside of God's purpose. He's in total control of every nation, including the nation of Israel. And under this banner of nations, we could just bring it to our modern day. Every prime minister, every president is under the sovereign plan and rule of God.

Yeah, and I guess two things, maybe one observation and a question would be, one is incredibly encouraging just to hear you walk through this. I mean, I think I love listening to other podcasts of which Dialine is my favorite, but when I'm not listening to Dialine, you just listen to political commentators, economists, historians will comment like we are living in a unique time in at least American history where division is at a high point. And yet we look at God's bedrock truth preserved for us in the granite scripture. And he's saying, to your point, over all politics, over all economies of all time, in any geography, in any culture, God reigns supreme and is

establishing them. So maybe observation, encouragement. The question would be, speak to, I feel like it's kind of the first question that comes to mind is like, are we saying then there's no human free will, responsibility, action? Are we not called to obey if God's totally sovereign? I can hear the argument being like, well, we're all robots kind of on God's stage. Yeah, and I think I'll just respond to that, the second question, which is, does this mean we're not responsible? Yes. You know, I think that there's obviously a parallel in scripture. If you go back to Exodus, it says five times that Pharaoh hardened his heart. And then five times, it also says, I think

that the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart. So God's hardening never superseded, you know, Pharaoh's own responsibility, you know, so no, God is never the author of evil. We'll talk about this more as we go. God's sovereignty never negates human responsibility, but like a steel cable running throughout the scripture or like train tracks going throughout the scripture, we see parallel realities, God's sovereignty and human responsibility,

even with our leaders. But the reality of scripture is that this president was elected by God. The last president was elected by God. The last president was elected by God. The next president will be elected by God because he's sovereign over the nations. Secondly, here, God is sovereign over nature. I love just, I'll give you some scriptures in the comments, but the reality is no baby is born, no sparrow dies,

no star shifts in their positions, no wave crashes, no drop of rain falls, no lion hunts, no hawk soars apart from God's sovereign rule. I love even in Daniel, we mentioned that God can hush the proudest of kings in Daniel 4 with Nebuchadnezzar, but he can also hush the wind and the seas. And they marvel, the disciples do that, the wind and the seas obey him. Job has one of my favorite lines in scripture. All the time up there. Job responds in his anxiety, and he's asking God basically, why are you doing this?

Why is this happening? And one of the ways that God responds is by proclaiming his power over nature more than anything. And then he asked Job, does the lightning tap you on the shoulder and ask you where to strike? Sometimes I think we say things Job, does the lightning tap you on the shoulder and ask you where to strike? Sometimes I think we say things like, does lightning strike, you know, the same spot twice? Well, if God wanted it to, absolutely. Much more could be said here in the realm of nature. Even

if we looked at the book of Jonah, God appoints a great wind, appoints a great fish. He appoints a great, yeah, plant, then a great heat, then a great wind again, because it's just showing over and over again God's sovereignty. But much more could be said here. But contrary to what David Attenborough says as he narrates planet Earth. Look at the water buffalo as they come across the leopard. Yeah, you need to work on that. I apologize.

Let's cut that. The reality is that nature in our world is the product of unforeseen forces of Mother Nature. But God says that's all under the sovereign orchestration of who our God is as creator. And it's not just these great beasts. It's not just great storms. It's not just tsunamis and hurricanes. It's everything at the molecular and atomic level. R.C. Sproul says there is no maverick molecule, meaning that God's sovereignty is exercised

over even the remotest, smallest fragment of dust. Yeah, as well as the cosmos. As well as the cosmos. And that's one of the realities of scripture that he calls the stars out by name. The third arena here or realm here in which God exercises his sovereignty is time. Time, from cradle to coffin,

every moment of your life, every moment in history, God is absolutely sovereign over time. It says that he commands the morning. That's one of the things that God asked Job. Have you ever in your life? This is, I think, the initial question out of the gates, Job gird your loins. And then he says, have you ever in your life commanded the morning? Also all time statement from God. Yeah. Gird your

loins. Yeah. Gird your loins. He commands the morning and he commands the sunset. That's not left to chance. That's left to the predetermined plan of God. And God is not only the one who commands the morning. He's the one who sovereignly orchestrate how many mornings in your life you will experience. Psalm 139 verse 16 says, all of your days are written in God's book before one of them came to being. Meaning that I know we say things in our contemporary culture that this person's life was cut short and we understand what someone's saying when they say that. But according to the scripture, every day of every life was predetermined by God. If you don't believe that,

you don't believe what the Bible plainly says. James 4.13 says, come now you who say today and tomorrow will go to such and such a city and spend a year there, engage in business and make a profit. You don't even know what your life will look like tomorrow. You're just a vapor. So James says, you don't even know what your life will look like tomorrow. You're just a vapor. So James says, you don't even know what your life will look like tomorrow.

But you know who does? God. Because God, he calls us into being. And then he's the one in Psalm 90 verse 3. He's the one that says, okay, it's time for you to return to the dust. Because from the dust man is created and to the dust they will return. That's why at a funeral we say dust to dust. Because that's where God sends us back.

I was talking to a missionary at our church recently, and he made the comment, he served in this really remote part of the world. And I was just asking him from a practical standpoint, you're serving with your kids in a remote part of the world. You're worried like snakes, venomous creatures abound. And he said, you know what? No, actually, I had the firm conviction

that I was myself and my wife and our kids were immortal until the Lord was calling us home. Yeah, and I think that's a George Whitefield line that, you know, you're immortal until your work for God is done. So God is sovereign over all of our days and he's sovereign over just when it's been one of those days. Because from our birthday to our death day and every day in between, he's sovereign over time. Fourth reality here is that god is sovereign over suffering now in a short podcast i want to tread carefully here i think i go into greater detail on this in the book that hopefully is gilded appropriately god is not the author of evil and suffering he hates evil and one day he's going to make all things new but the reality of scripture is is that God is sovereign over it.

And one of the verses that I reference, you know, typically when I'm talking about this is in Genesis chapter 50, verse 20. Joseph had been in prison for 14 years, you know, betrayed by his brothers, been removed from his family. At the conclusion of Genesis, Joseph says, what you meant for evil, God turned into good. No, he doesn't say that. He says, what you meant for evil, God meant for good. Joseph doesn't come to say, you unbelievable jerks, you hatched an evil plan. And unless God had salvaged this and called an audible and done

this, this and this, and this, it would have ended up in our destruction. He says that you had an evil purpose, but God had a good purpose. And I think this is such an important thing to understand for anybody that's been hurt by other people or gone through suffering themselves. Some people ask the question, you know, where was God on this day? Or where was God on this day? If he's all good and all powerful

large question here why doesn't he stop all evil but and I think sometimes in the way that people respond and Jerry Bridges gets to this in his book trusting God Harold Kushner and he wrote a book called why do bad things happen to good people and he says you can pray for God because he's unable to stop certain things that are evil that are happening. He wishes he could, but he can't. He's in that. Yeah, and so Harold Kushner goes on to do a PR campaign for God saying, yeah, you know, he wishes he could stop it, but he's watching evil unfold just like we are and he's weeping at it. Here's the reality of scripture.

Amos 3.6, is a trumpet blown in a city and the people are not afraid. Does disaster come to a city unless the Lord has done it? Isaiah 45 verse 7, I am the one forming light and creating darkness. I cause well-being and create calamity. I am the Lord who does this. When Moses says, I can't talk at the burning bush in Exodus 3, God responds and says, Moses, who made man's mouth? Is it not I, the Lord? Who makes man mute or deaf or lame? It's me.

It's the Lord. It's really important for people to understand that God is not hamstrung by evil. He's not shackled. There are no gaps in God's sovereignty. Now, I think probably the pause here is that this initially sounds discomforting to people to hear that God is sovereign over suffering. But I would want to encourage people that there is no comfort in suffering unless God is sovereign over it.

Because we can trust, according to the scripture, that if God is sovereign over our suffering, then that means he's working out a plan, even when we cannot connect the dots. You know, and I want to try, you know, as I mentioned carefully here, because even going back to my days working at a camp every summer, I would hear stories from students that would come up to camp and they would tell me things that could make a stone weep. It was just tragic and heartbreaking. You've gone through things, Hank, that are really hard and difficult. So suffering to many people is not a foreign subject. But the comfort of God's people now and for the last 8,000 years is that God is sovereign over our suffering.

And if he wasn't, then our suffering would be absolutely pointless. We would have no hope. Well, and you just, drawing the distinction you made already, John Bunyan is writing from where? He's writing from prison. Paul writes from prison. Yeah, absolutely. Be anxious writing from where? He's writing from prison. Paul writes from prison. Yeah, absolutely. Be anxious for nothing. Joseph spent 14 years in prison.

It's just, we're standing on the shoulders of men and women who've come before us, who've experienced great suffering and yet experienced deep intimacy with the Lord. And that's why Margaret Clarkson says that this is the impregnable rock you can cling to. Because God is sovereign over all these things, he has the power to redeem all these things. And sometimes people say things like, you know, hindsight's 20-20, you're going to understand what you're walking through in 20 years. That's not always the case because God is working out an eternal plan, not a 20-year plan. I like what C.H. Spurgeon said. He says, there is no attribute of God more comforting to his children

than the doctrine of divine sovereignty. Under the most adverse circumstances and the most severe troubles, they believe that sovereignty hath ordained their afflictions, that sovereignty overrules them, and that sovereignty will sanctify them all. Ultimately, we see one of the clearest demonstrations of suffering in the book of Job. And Job says in Job 13, though he slay me, I will hope in him. And to the first century Christians that are suffering under the hand of Nero, Peter says in 1 Peter 4.19, let those who suffer according to God's will and trust their souls to a faithful creator. So we can trust God, knowing that he's sovereign in our suffering and he uses our suffering to wean us from this world, to sanctify us into his image. And that one day, all of the suffering that we experience, he's going to get rid of.

He's going to wipe away every tear. And it leads us to this fifth reality that God is sovereign over Satan and evil. Obviously, closely connected. They're suffering in our world because of the evil in our world. But God is sovereign over Satan. You know, I know a lot of people that are afraid of the demonic world and there's a reality in that, right? But every Christian needs to understand that Satan and God are not wrestling back and forth in some sort of cosmic tug of war. It's not Rocky versus Drago where God throws a punch and then Satan throws back another punch. And then in the end, we know that God is going to ultimately be victorious.

The reality of scripture is that Satan is a runt upon and God is the king. Even in the book of Job, Satan is the one asking God for permission. Satan is the one that comes to God and in request of God, God grants that permission. But the devil, Martin Luther used to say, is God's devil. He's on a leash. He does nothing other than what God allows. I think this is very crucial to understand because you look at the world, it's becoming increasingly dark from all appearances, but Yahweh is not straining his muscles against a formidable foe. It's not like, okay, we know that this guy's going to win in the end. No, he's totally sovereign over Satan.

We also juxtapose this against other realities in the scripture, that Satan is, John 12, the ruler of this world. In 2 Corinthians 4, he's the god of this world. And Satan is, in Ephesians 2, called the prince of the power of the air. But all of Satan's authority and power and evil is subject to God's permission and the limits that God has set. And this may be discomforting as well. And even going back to Harold Kushner, sometimes people who wrote, why do bad Things Happen to Good People, sometimes people find more comfort in thinking Satan is sovereign more than God because that gives them someone to blame. But I would want to ask the question like Jerry Bridges does,

do you really want to go there? Do you really want to go to a place and believe that Satan exercises authority over God or that Satan can do anything apart from God's permission. The reality is to deny God's absolute sovereignty over evil and Satan is to deny the Bible and diminish God's power. Man is responsible. Satan is responsible. He'll one day be thrown forever into the lake of fire, but man's responsibility and man's, you know, independence in that regard is never nullifying God's absolute sovereignty. And I think if I said five, but if there's a sixth category for this episode.

Sneaking one in under the buzzer. And I think in a future episode, we'll do a seventh. But in this sixth one, if God is sovereign over nations, if he's sovereign over nature, if he's sovereign over time, if he's sovereign over suffering, if he's sovereign over Satan and evil, then you can know for sure that God is sovereign over your life. You know, even Jesus draws our attention to this reality that if God knows exactly when one sparrow falls in Matthew 11, two of them are sold for a single cent

and not one of them falls to the ground apart from your father's predetermined plan. If that's the reality over a sparrow, how much more those who are made in the image of God and who have been blood bought by his one and only son. I think it's also worth noting, Hank, that as we mentioned at the beginning, God's sovereignty can never be segregated from his other attributes. I think there's a danger almost in isolating one attribute, you know, for a discussion.

I love Isaiah 40. Are you there in Isaiah 40 still? Yes. You know, we read, read verse 12 for me. Yeah. Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand and encompassed the heavens by the span and calculated the dust of the earth by the measure and weighed the mountains in a balance

and the hills in a pair of scales. It says in verse 15, the nations are like a drop from a bucket. Passage goes on to say in verse 22 that God sits above the circle of the earth and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers. It says that he stretches out the heavens like a curtain. It says that he calls the stars by name.

So he's just building up this massive idea of God. God is the one who measures the waters in the palm of his hand. He marks off the heavens, the universe, all of the galaxies with his span, thumb to pinky. It's the nations of the world that are like a drop in the bucket. It says that he sits above the circle of the earth. The mightiest king of the biggest kingdom is like a grasshopper. That's just emphasizing God's power, his majesty, and his sovereignty. But it's amazing that these truths that we just mentioned are tethered to these preceding words in Isaiah 40 verse 11. Like a shepherd, he will tend his flock. In his arm, he will gather the lambs and carry them in his bosom. He will gently lead the nursing ewes. This is a precious truth of scripture. God is a powerful ruler and he is

also a gentle shepherd. We can never divorce God's control from his love. So maybe build on that. If I'm going to sneak in a final question here, what is in light of those six realities or buckets of God's sovereignty that we've considered? What is a response? Help us with what are the practical applications of what should characterize our response to a sovereign God? I would think we trust God because he's sovereign. And I think there's probably maybe still some hesitation. How do I know I can trust this sovereign God? And it's, as I mentioned, because his love is always connected to his sovereignty. And we have to have this idea of God as a sovereign God, that he's not just pulling

strings, right? And the passage that I always like to go to in this regard to, to, to garner the appropriate response is John 11. You know, Jesus is one of his best friends. Lazarus has died. He waits two days. He gets there. Lazarus has been in the grave for multiple days.

And they say, oh, Lord, if you had been here, he wouldn't have died. Now, Jesus knows exactly what he's going to do. He's going to raise Lazarus from the grave. But before he does that, it says in John 11, 35, the shortest verse in the Bible, it says Jesus wept. And you have to ask the question, why is Jesus weeping when he knows he's about to raise Lazarus from the grave? You would think that Jesus would say, all right, everybody. Step back.

Yeah, check this out. But it says that Jesus weeps. And you have to ask the question, why? And I think the answer is very simple. It's because obviously, yeah, he hates evil. He hates sin. He hates death. But the reality of scripture is that he's a sympathetic high priest who feels what we feel.

He was totally human. So yes, God is sovereign, but he also knows our frame. He knows that we're dust. He's not indifferent or apathetic towards our pain. He weeps with us. And I think that's a precious reality. And if you're still doubting the sovereignty of God, because I think the main response here is trust and worship. If you're still doubting the sovereignty of God,

saying, okay, I hear that, that he's sympathetic, but how do I know I can trust a sovereign God? Then you would just have to go to Acts 2 and understand that in the sovereignty of God, it says at the appointed time, God is the one who predetermined Jesus Christ to go to the cross. Galatians, when the fullness of time had come, Jesus came to die. And we often look at the

reality that the cross is the greatest demonstration of the love of God, Romans 5.8, but it's also the greatest demonstration of the sovereignty of God, because there at the cross of Calvary, the greatest evil happened to the most blameless person who ever lived. And so R.C. Sproul used to say, you know, why do bad things happen to good people? Well, that only happened once, and he volunteered. Because there at the cross, the greatest sermon ever preached on God's love, God's sovereignty, his justice, his goodness, and his wisdom was manifest for us. And so how do we respond?

We respond by trusting in Jesus to be our savior, by trusting him each and every day, by worshiping a sovereign God, knowing that not only because he's sovereign can we trust him, it means we can live with boldness, right? Because our life is held in the hands of God. Ecclesiastes 9 says it also means that this can foster evangelism. The whole world lives in crippled paranoia and fear. What's tomorrow hold? What does my life look like?

The Christian knows what our eternity looks like. And so that fosters the level of evangelistic fervor to declare who this God is to the world around us. Well, that's excellent. I think that's who this God is to the world around us. Well, that's excellent. I think that's maybe a good place to wrap this one up. It's a deep encouragement to me. I think for those listening, watching along with us, we thank you for tuning in. Please like, comment, share this with a friend. So thanks, Johnny. Appreciate the time this afternoon. Thanks, Hank.