Over the past few weeks a number of things have happened and have raised the old question of God’s presence and work in the world.  The storms in Burma, with so many people killed and so many left suffering.  The elections in Zimbabwe with all the violence, fraud and all the suffering, the earthquakes in China with so many dead, so many suffering and so many left homeless.  On a smaller scale but no less devastating are the children in India who live in railway stations begging and scavenging for food daily.  When a young couple, married for only a month give themselves to serve a community, and the wife gets robbed of her handbag and then simply shot through the stomach and left.
 

I am sure each one of you can add to this list some of the terrible things happening in the world today.  Where is God in all this?  If we believe God rules, how do we respond to these issues and how do we cope?  The sovereignty of God is one of those doctrines that everybody says they believe in, but in practice this does not always show in our lives.  What does the sovereignty of God mean?  A.W Pink in his little book, The Sovereignty of God, addresses this issue head on and I think it would be good for us to remind ourselves of some of the facts.  Without reprinting the whole chapter I cannot do justice to his writings so I will simple give some thoughts that I think are most pertinent but I would encourage you to read the chapter for yourself.

Starting with 1 Chronicles 29:11 Pink points out that there was a time when this doctrine was ‘key to history, the interpreter of Providence, the warp and woof of Scripture, and the foundation of Christian theology,’ but now it is a very misunderstood, neglected and maligned doctrine.
 

“What do we mean by this expression?  We mean the supremacy of God, the kingship of God, the Godhood of God.

To say that God is sovereign is to declare that God is God.

To say that God rules is to declare that He is the most High, doing according to His will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth, so that none can stay His hand or say to Him, What doest Thou? (Dan.4:35).

To say that God is sovereign is to declare that He is the Almighty, the Possessor of all power in heaven and earth, so that none can defeat His counsels, thwart His purpose, or resist His will (Ps.115:3).

To say that God is sovereign is to declare that He is “The Governor among the nations” (Ps.22:28), setting up kingdoms, overthrowing empires, and determining the course of dynasties as pleases Him best.

To say that God is sovereign is to declare that He is the “Only Potentate, the King of Kings, and the Lord of Lords” (1Tim.6:15). Such is the God of the Bible.”

We need to reaffirm our absolute faith and trust in the God of the Bible and not some caricature that the world has reduced God to.  There may be many circumstances and things we do not understand, we may never on this earth come to terms with some matters, but do we have a big enough vision and trust of who God is, to trust Him with
that which is beyond us?