The God over Geopolitics – Ask Pastor John
“Because the 12 months attracts to an in depth, so too does our Bible-reading schedule. Because of everybody who joined us in 2024 within the Navigators Bible Studying Plan. This late within the 12 months, we discover ourselves within the ultimate chapters of Revelation, tomorrow studying Revelation 17 collectively, a chapter on the thoughts of Dan, who’s a brand new listener to the podcast. Welcome, Dan. He asks this.
“Pastor John, hey, and thanks for taking my query. This 12 months of 2024 turned out to be one other tense 12 months in geopolitics, with two wars occurring and resulting in numerous speak concerning the breakout of World Battle III over rising tensions between the USA and the West in opposition to China and Russia and North Korea and Iran. I feel I used to know God’s relationships to the rulers of superpowers of the world as predictive. He was sovereign in that he foreknew what world rulers would freely do. Then I encountered Revelation 17:17. This verse stopped me in my tracks. Every little thing has modified for me. Are you able to clarify the that means of this textual content, whether or not it usually explains how issues work at present? In that case, what function is God taking part in in geopolitics proper now?”
Earlier than we lower to the query and truly quote the textual content so folks will know what he’s asking about, let me rejoice Dan’s submission to the particularity of biblical instructing. Oh, how I like this. Oh, how wanted that is. So many individuals at present are treating the Bible as a sort of nondirective, open-ended story that individuals can mould into no matter view of God or ethics they need. However the Bible, the truth is, is made up of sentences and paragraphs which have intentional meanings from God-inspired authors, and we should deliver our lives into submission to what these sentences really train.
Check Educating with Scripture
What I lengthy for and pray for, Tony, in our APJ listeners, is that they’d be trustworthy readers of their Bibles — that they turn out to be so aware of the instructing of Scripture that after they learn faulty doctrinal statements, they’d consider biblical sentences that say the alternative, they usually wouldn’t be swayed away from the reality. For instance, not way back I used to be studying a serious Christian information journal that contained these two sentences — they usually do relate not directly to Dan’s query, imagine it or not.
That is the quote: “The place Calvin taught predestination, Wesley believed that by prevenient grace, God freed the human will sufficiently to simply accept or reject the provide of salvation.” And now, up to now so good. I feel that’s correct. However then this sentence: “God predestined a plan of salvation, not particular person folks.” Now, I’m not going accountable John Wesley for something right here as a result of he’s far more cautious than this author. That final sentence is simply plain false. It’s false for Wesleyans. It’s false for Calvinists like me. It says, “God predestined a plan of salvation, not particular person folks.”
What I hope for in all our listeners is that after they learn a sentence like that, they’d say, “Wait, what about Romans 8:29? What about Romans 8:30? ‘These whom [God] foreknew he predestined. . . . And people whom he predestined he referred to as, and people whom he referred to as he justified, and people whom he justified he glorified.’” These predestined, these referred to as, these justified, these glorified. These are particular person folks whom God predestined. Calvinists suppose that; Wesleyans suppose that. What we disagree about is the idea of predestination, however each agree that God predestines particular person folks. I simply need our listeners to be individuals who hear the assertion, “God doesn’t predestine people,” and say, “That’s not what the Bible teaches. I can consider a verse the place that’s not true. It’s simply not true. I don’t care what journal it’s in or who says it.” That’s the sort of Bible folks we’d like.
Now, Dan, who’s asking this query, displays this mindset. That’s what I’m celebrating. He has a viewpoint in his head about what sovereignty means, and immediately he sees a sentence in Revelation 17:17 and says, “Whoa, I don’t suppose that verse is instructing my viewpoint.” As a substitute of twisting the verse, he modifies his viewpoint. Right here’s what he says: “I feel I used to know God’s relationships to rulers of superpowers of the world as predictive. He was sovereign in that he foreknew what world rulers would freely do. Then I encountered Revelation 17:17. This verse stopped me in my tracks. Every little thing has modified for me.” Good, sure. That occurs. That is wonderful. Right here’s a human being with a coronary heart and a thoughts able to be led by Scripture.
God’s Sovereignty over World Powers
And he reads this. Right here’s what he reads in Revelation 17:12–13, 17: “The ten horns that you simply noticed are ten kings. . . . These are of 1 thoughts, they usually hand over their energy and authority to the beast [the Antichrist]. . . . For God has put it into their hearts” — these ten kings — “to hold out his goal by being of 1 thoughts and handing over their royal energy to the beast, till the phrases of God are fulfilled.”
“God is sovereign to determine all the pieces that can occur on this world, together with the actions of depraved kings.”
Now, what Dan noticed in Revelation 17:17 is that his prior view of God’s sovereignty as foreknowing the acts of evil kings didn’t match up with the pretty clear instructing on this verse — particularly, God doesn’t simply foreknow what these ten kings are going to do, however he “put it into their hearts to hold out his goal by . . . handing over their royal energy to the beast [the Antichrist].” So, right here we’re again at predestination (I meant it that the quote from that journal has to do with what we’re speaking about right here) — and God’s sovereignty to determine all the pieces that can occur on this world, together with the actions of depraved kings.
Right here’s what typically occurs when a Dan expertise — like he had — takes place. What typically occurs when a instructing of the Bible modifications the way in which we predict is that we begin seeing the change within the Bible time and again. It’s simply wonderful. “How might I not have seen that? Right here it’s, and there it’s, and there it’s. What on the earth was I pondering?”
For instance, Proverbs 21:1: “The king’s coronary heart is a stream of water within the hand of the Lord; he turns it wherever he’ll.” Not simply godly kings — all kings, pagan kings. Kings like Cyrus and Artaxerxes after they assisted within the rebuilding of the temple in Jerusalem. Ezra says, “Blessed be the Lord . . . who put such a factor as this into the center of the king, to beautify the home of the Lord that’s in Jerusalem” (Ezra 7:27). Cyrus and Artaxerxes weren’t believers. God simply directed their hearts to do what he wished them to get accomplished. Or Daniel says of the boastful Belshazzar, “The God in whose hand is your breath, and whose are all of your methods, you haven’t honored” (Daniel 5:23). All of the boastful king’s methods are within the hand of God.
Or, most necessary of all, Acts 4. The Christians are praying concerning the depraved rulers, Herod and Pilate, and the best evil that’s ever been accomplished within the historical past of the world — particularly, the homicide of the Son of God. And so they pray like this: “Actually on this metropolis there have been gathered collectively in opposition to your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, each Herod and Pontius Pilate, together with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, to do no matter your hand and your plan had predestined to happen” (Acts 4:27–28). They murdered the Son of God, and God predestined it. If he hadn’t, no person can be saved.
Completely Sovereign, Sensible, and Good
What all these verses present, particularly the final ones, is that God, in his infinite knowledge and righteousness and energy, is ready to design the deeds of evil kings in order to result in his functions for good: the great of his folks and the glory of his identify. We don’t want to have the ability to clarify intimately how God does that. It could stay a thriller how he’s sovereign and people are morally accountable — that kings imply evil and God means it for good (Genesis 50:20). However we undergo what the Bible teaches. God is larger than we’re.
So, in reply to Dan’s ultimate query, the function that God is taking part in in geopolitics this very day is the function of a fully sovereign, all-righteous, all-wise, all-good God. Kings rise and fall at God’s decree. “I’m God, and there’s no different; I’m God, and there’s none like me . . . saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, and I’ll accomplish all my goal’” (Isaiah 46:9–10). The kings who handed over their energy to the beast are not any much less underneath God’s sovereign management than the kings who rule righteously. Our job is to not penetrate the mysteries of windfall however to obey the revealed phrase of God.
John Piper (@JohnPiper) is founder and trainer of Wanting God and chancellor of Bethlehem Faculty and Seminary. For 33 years, he served as pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church, Minneapolis, Minnesota. He’s creator of greater than 50 books, together with Wanting God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist and most lately Foundations for Lifelong Studying: Training in Critical Pleasure.” from the Trancript
