God is in Control
(week 18, 2007)
Olubi Johnson
Daniel 4:17(NKJV): 17 ‘This decision is by the decree of the watchers, and the sentence by the word of the holy ones, in order that the living may know that the Most High rules in the kingdom of men, gives it to whomever He will, and sets over it the lowest of men.’
Here, the scripture reveals that God rules in the Kingdom of men.
However, when we look into the every day events both in our personal lives as well as in the affairs of nations it seems many times that God is not ruling in the affairs of men.
This is particularly true now in the end-time that iniquity is abounding (Matthew.24.12): terrorism, wars, corruption, immorality, greed and such like characterize what we see on the earth.
Is God truly in control? Is His Kingdom coming and is His will being done on earth as it is in heaven?
Yes, God is in control.
However, because of man’s free will, men can choose to do evil. God does not stop this but works around it intervening sovereignly at critical points in time, both in the lives of individuals and nations, to stay in control and ultimately cause His Kingdom or dominion to come and His will to be done in the earth.
A discerning survey of history (His Story: God’s story) will easily reveal this.
In the 20th century Adolf Hitler was set by Satan to destroy the Jews and so cause God’s plan for the reestablishment of natural Israel as a nation in Palestine to be aborted. Six million Jews were killed by Hitler and his henchmen and about 50 million people died in World war 2 (WW2): all of this was not the will of God but happened because of man’s misuse of his free will. However, at crucial points in time in the middle of all this evil God intervened in the battle of Britain, in the German invasion of the Soviet Union and finally the defeat of Nazi Germany and the creation of Israel in May 1948. The kingdom or dominion of God ultimately prevailed and His will for creation of Israel was done! God is control!
At the close of WW2 mankind was ushered into the era of nuclear power, by the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan in August 1945.
Shortly afterwards the Soviet Union and other nations developed nuclear weapons and the cold war developed between the western democratic nations and the communist eastern nations. The stage was set for world annihilation by a nuclear holocaust. In fact, secular writers described it as a MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) situation.
The Bay of Pigs situation between the US and Russia over missile sites in Cuba brought this reality frightfully close.
However, in the 1980’s God sovereignly, through prophetic revelation, intercession and utterance, raised up in the Soviet Union a man called Mikhail Gorbachev who dismantled the Soviet Union by the stroke of a pen without firing a shot! God is in control!
Today, while many dangers and evils are still present in the earth, we can rest in the assurance both witnessed by the written Word and the testimony of history that God is in control:
Daniel 4:34-35(NKJV): 34 And at the end of the time I, Nebuchadnezzar, lifted my eyes to heaven, and my understanding returned to me; and I blessed the Most High and praised and honored Him who lives forever: For His dominion is an everlasting dominion, And His kingdom is from generation to generation. 35 All the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing; He does according to His will in the army of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth. No one can restrain His hand or say to Him, “What have You done?”
