Do You Embrace the Sovereignty of God?

A man overweight, out of shape, not in good health, goes to the doctor.

And so, after he's examined, the doctor comes back in, and he says, what do you think, Doc? The doctor says, well, the best thing you can do, is to stop drinking, stop smoking, and stop carousing.

Man looks at him and says, well, Doc, what's the next best thing? That reminds me, when God asked us to love him with all our heart, our soul, our minds, and our being, reminds me that there is no second best thing. This is what God has laid out for us, because that's what he's doing for us every day. So, the title of my sermon today is, Do You Embrace? Do you embrace the doctrine of the sovereignty of God? Do you embrace the doctrine of the sovereignty of God? Before you answer that, let us define three words here. One is embrace. Embrace. Even Lisa right here, she looks at me saying, please don't call my name again.

Lisa could even tell you what embrace means. It means to hug, right?

It can also mean to accept, to adopt, to receive gladly. Then the word doctrine. Doctrine means a principle, position, policy taught, or teachings collectively. A set of ideas or beliefs that are taught or believed to be true. Do we then accept or receive gladly the principle or position of the sovereignty of God?

The word sovereign or sovereignty is defined as superior, greater, greatest, supreme power, the chief of the highest, or an absolute, unlimited, unrestricted, boundless, ultimate rule.

So I ask you again, do you embrace the doctrine of the sovereignty of God? I like to think of the doctrine of the sovereignty of God as God, as ruler, has the right to do whatever he wants when he wants. He has complete control over all things at all times. The writer and theologian, Chip Ingram, defines God's sovereignty as God is in control.

He goes on and says, there is nothing. Right?

Chip Ingram says, there is nothing, absolutely nothing, that happens in the universe that is outside of God's influence and authority. Would you agree with that? Hopefully most of us would. Hopefully most of us will. We may say it, or think it, but do we believe it?

Do we believe it in here, in our hearts? Do we, in our hearts, embrace the doctrine of the sovereignty of God? See, it is at the core of the First Commandment, isn't it?

In the world today, we have so many isms and ologies that the sovereignty of God has gotten lost as Orlando brought up. So, well, we are a changed country from when we were founded.

Can we say with conviction that God is the supreme authority? Is he your supreme authority?

That he is not subject to or has to answer to any power or law which is or could be superior to himself? Only God and not Muhammad Ali can readily say, I am the greatest of all times because God is and no one else is or will be.

King David, in his final public prayer of thanksgiving, I'd like you to turn there if you don't mind. I'll read from a new King James. 1 Chronicles 29 verse 10 through 12. Verse 1 Chronicles 29, 10 through 12.

David's at the end of his life. He's about to die.

So he would have been somewhere at least 69 or 70, meaning he died at 70.

And in verse 10 it says, therefore, David blessed the Lord. It means he had a good word, barak, the Hebrew word, barak. He blessed the Lord before all the congregation and David said, blessed are you, Lord, God of Israel, our Father, for ever and ever. Yours, O Lord, is the what did he say then? greatest, the power and the glory, the victory and the majesty for all that is in heaven. And an earth is what? Yours, yours. It's all yours, God.

Knowing David was a man of passion, you can imagine how he said this, knowing it would probably his last time he would be speaking. He says, yours is the kingdom, O God, Lord, and you are exalted as head over all.

Both riches and honor come from you and you reign over what? All.

God, you reign over all. In your hand is power and might, and in your hand it is to make great and to give strength to all. He is the power behind everything.

Like you turn to Psalm 103, just read one verse in verse 19. This is further writings of David. Psalm 103, verse 19. He puts this very plain and simple. The Lord has established his throne in heaven, and his kingdom rules over all. Pretty plain, crystal clear, nothing ambiguous about all. And I guess that's why the writer of, and most scholars believe it's Ezra in Psalm 115, in verse 3, because the writer says, but God is in heaven and he does whatever, you get this, whatever he pleases. He does whatever he pleases. It reminds me of growing up, my father would come home and made sure that we all knew he was ahead of the house. So when it came to having that extra piece of cake or that extra chicken leg, he made sure that he was the one that either got it or dished it out. Now, he was my example of being over all in our household. God is over all this world.

You know, King David knew a little bit about being sovereign in his really small world compared to God's in the universe. In his realm, in this physical realm that he was in, he had absolute power in his nation. He could buy, he could sell, he could go to war, he could have as many concubines and wives as he chose to have, he could kill, which he did many times, he could even murder and then take the widow as his wife.

But in the end, as he found out, he was accountable to God. He was accountable to God just as we are accountable to God. Just as that man walking down the street that says he does not believe in a God and he doesn't need anybody telling him what to do, he will find out one day what we in this room hopefully know that there is one sovereign over the entire universe. And that is God. You know, kings through the ages, kings, rulers, have thought they were sovereign. But nobody was going to tell them what to do. And for periods of time, they did exist. But it was only limited. They didn't know they were limited to God's time, God's power, God's blessing, and God's cursing. They really thought they answered to no one. I take the example of Saddam Hussein.

I read a book, I think it's back in Tennessee in my library, a very hard book to go through. It was written by one of his generals, who was also a doctor, who skipped out before they were finally conquered. But he wanted to tell people what it was like, up close and personal, with this dictator, this despot. And there have been many cruel dictators and despots through the years. We've seen them. But it's so interesting because Saddam Hussein built his palace right across the road from the old city of Babylon.

And he actually started the reconstruction, quite a few years ago, of Babylon. All those beautiful buildings and walls.

And you can actually go on YouTube and see the construction today, because he did accomplish quite a lot of the walls, but how are you going to accomplish 60 square, 60 lineal miles of wall that was 300 feet tall and 80 foot thick?

But the entrance, he actually wanted to rebuild. And you can go there today and you can see where they have they had the original foundations and he just had his people build on top of those. So it came right up out of the building.

Footers. And he decided on one that you can go and see now. It says something about I, Saddam Hussein, son of Nebuchadnezzar, rebuild this city.

Well, they never got a chance to. He did quite a lot during his time, but he virtually had slave labor.

He lived very luxuriously. Why so many people were just barely getting by the oppressed people. He was known for his terror because he came to rule because of his cruelty and viciousness. He murdered his first person at age 10, did not kill, he murdered. And from then there were thousands after that time that he personally would kill. His sons, Uday and Kusey, forget, I think it was Uday that was so vicious that he had to send him away because he was killing so many of his own people by losing his temper. As a matter of fact, President Mubarak, the president's wife, came over to meet Saddam Hussein's wife and have this party, and Uday got so upset at one of the advisors of his father that he, in front of all the women, killed the guy, cut his throat in front of everyone.

Uday then was sent, because of his embarrassment, to another country where he got sent back because he actually killed someone there. And then he came back home and just tortured. He became the torture man and main hit man for his father.

They actually thought in their minds. They answered to no one.

Now, are they alone? No. Thousands just like them still exist. Another one right now is Kim Jong Un, the son of Kim Jong Il.

He just had all of his father's advisors assassinated, killed, because he reigned supreme. And one of the banners he has above his head is, he is the supreme ruler. He doesn't know yet what you know.

Like you to turn to Daniel, if you will. Daniel 2. Get the incredible story of King Nebuchadnezzar. And Nebuchadnezzar has a dream. And he asked Daniel, could you tell the dream? When somebody'd tell him the dream what it meant, or what was the dream?

Daniel was the only one that could. And Daniel 2 in verse 20 says to him, blessed be the name of God forever and ever.

For wisdom and might are his. He changes the times and the season. He removes kings and raises up kings. Similar to the verse that we're given, if you will, in Romans 13 verse 1. A thousand years difference here between Daniel, full 500 years difference between Daniel and when this was written in first century AD. But in Romans 13 verse 1, Paul wants to remind the Romans there. He said, let every soul be subject to the governing authority. For there is what? No. No authority except from God.

And the authority that exists are appointed by God. So we need to tread lightly when we condemn or we're belligerent in our speech towards authority.

We have the right in this country, the freedom, to say when something is wrong. Not right, messed up, and we should.

But the authority of this country and every country in the world right now, they are where they are because God appointed them. He puts them there, as it says, and he takes them out. That is a sovereignty of God. He's over everything all the time, even when we do not agree with it. We think, well, we would do it differently. We're not God. Tread lightly on those thoughts. I would do things differently, but I have found out I need to keep my mouth shut a lot and let God have control.

Because he is in control. What I want to look at today, is at the only pagan king to author part of the Bible.

Yes, a pagan king wrote a portion of the Bible, the only pagan king. In fact, he wrote almost an entire chapter of the Bible.

I hope most of us realize who that pagan king was, and we can actually learn a lot. Because as we look at the Saddam Hussein's, the Kim Jong Un's, and the various leaders who exist today, and that will exist in the next few years, because yes, there's going to be new leaders. There's going to be new kings, new rulers, a new world power that's on the horizon.

They are there, and they will be there, because God has appointed them to be there.

The king's name, of course, was King Nebuchadnezzar.

And he was as sovereign as a human could be at his time.

He was, as you could easily say at the time, a world ruler, a king who rivaled Alexander the Great and dominated the entire Middle East. His passion, besides world domination, was construction.

He loved to build, and he loved the building of opulence. Buildings unparalleled in the world at the time.

Matter of fact, you can see, if you go to the Pergamum Museum in Berlin, you can actually see the Ishtar Gate, the entrance gate. There were actually eight of them in Babylon, but the main gate was called the Ishtar Gate, and they have reconstructed it in this museum, using the same colors they had.

It's a very beautiful gate, incredible at its time. The actual gate there is not 300 feet tall. I think it's more like 150 feet tall, because they couldn't get it in that building. It shows just how massive this building project of Nebuchadnezzar was at the time. But at the famous Ishtar Gates, he put in when the bricks were actually being laid, that's what he had, clay bricks. They perfected the process of heating clay and making these bricks.

And with his hundreds of thousands of slaves by dominating other countries and making slaves of people that he brought into the country, he had a large labor pool so they could make a whole lot of bricks. They could lay a lot of brick, and they did. But at the famous gate there at the front, where everybody that came into this humongous city, you would see written, and they still have some of those tablets today, some of those bricks with his actual words, so they know exactly what was said.

He wrote, so you could read it as you came into this beautiful blue. It was this beautiful blue and different colors of walls that were built there. And he says, I, Nebuchadnezzar, laid the foundations of the gates down to the water level and had them built out of pure blue stone. Upon the walls in the inner room of the gate are bulls and dragons, and thus I magnificently adorned them with luxurious splendor for all mankind to behold in awe.

Those were the words. Could have written anything, but he wrote those. He wanted to be in awe. He was very powerful, very rich. I read just from secular history, from Oriental Heritage by William Durant, and he has a whole section on Babylon. And I want to just read a section I don't want to get too bogged down in history because my wife likes history, but she says just a little bit is enough.

So I want to just give a little bit just to validate the point that the scriptures are going to make. But Durant's history says that Nebuchadnezzar almost lived up to all of his hopes. For though he was illiterate and not unquestionably sane, he became the most powerful ruler of his time in the Near East. And the greatest warrior, statesman, and builder in all the succession of Babylonian kings after Hammurabi himself.

When Egypt conspired with Assyria to reduce Babylonia to Vasilege again, Nebuchadnezzar met the Egyptian host at Karkamesh on the upper reaches of the Euphrates and almost annihilated them. Palestine and Syria then fell easily under his sway, and the Babylonian merchants controlled all the trade that flowed across the Western Asia from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean Sea. Nebuchadnezzar spent the tolls of his trade, the tributes of these subjects, and the taxes of his people in beautifying his capital, and appeasing the hunger of the priest.

He resisted the temptation to be merely a conqueror, but he sent forth occasionally to teach his subjects the virtues of submission. But for the most part, he stayed at home, making Babylon the unrivaled capital of the Near East, the largest and most magnificent metropolis of the ancient world. His father had laid the plans for the reconstruction of the city.

Nebuchadnezzar used his long reign of 43 years to carry them to completion. Herodotus, the famous Greek historian, who saw Babylon a century and a half later, which would have put this at about 450 BC, this Greek historian who's very well known, traveled down to Babylonian to right since it was such a powerful city at one time. And he said, he described it as a standing in the spacious plain and surrounded by a wall 56 miles in length.

I can imagine so broad that a four-horse chariot could be driven along the top of this wall and enclosed in an area of some 200 square miles. This was in city walls 300 feet tall.

Though the city center of the town ran the palm fringe Euphrates busy with commerce and spanned by a handsome bridge, practically all the better buildings were a brick. For stone was rare in Mesopotamia, but the bricks were often faced with enameled tiles of brilliant blue and yellow and white, adorned with animals and other figures in glazed reliefs, which remained, to this day, supreme in their kind. Nearly all the bricks so far recovered from the site of Babylon, bear the proud inscription, I Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon.

It's actually said that 600 yards north of the tower of Babel, because the entire Babel was just outside of the city, rose a mound called Qasar, on which Nebuchadnezzar built the most imposing of his palaces. He did not just have just one. At its center stood his principal dwelling place, the walls of finely made yellow brick, the floors of white and mottled sandstone. Reliefs of vivid blue adorned the surfaces, and a gigantic concrete lions guarded the entrance. Nearby, supported on the succession of superimposed circular colonnads, were the famous hanging gardens, which the Greeks included among the seven wonders of the world. The galate, Nebuchadnezzar, had built them for one of his wives, the daughter of the king of the Medes. This prince is unaccustomed to the hot sun and dust of Babylon, pying for the verdure of her native hills. The topmost terrace was covered with rich soil to the depth of many feet, providing the space and nourishment not nearly for the varied flowers and plants, but for the largest and most deep-rooted trees. Trees of up to 50 foot tall were growing from this garden. Hydraulic engines concealed in the columns and manned by shafts of slaves carried the water from the Euphrates to the highest tier of the gardens. Here, 75 feet above the ground, in the cool shade of the day, and surrounded by the exotic shrubs and fragrant flowers, the ladies of the royal harem walked unveiled, secured from the common eye. While in the plains, the streets below, the common man and woman plowed, wove, built, carried burdens, and reproduced their kind. He had an incredible dynasty, even unparalleled when you read all the descriptions of any palace today. The Taj Mahal, a beautiful building, but this would also rival even that. I'd like to read from the New Living Translation. Go with the time we have left here today and go to the story in the scripture about Nebuchadnezzar.

I'd like you to turn to Daniel, if you will. Daniel 2. As we already looked, what Daniel had said earlier. But we know that Daniel interpreted a dream. And in Daniel 2, and I'll read from the New Living Translation, which gives it more of a story flow. And in Daniel 2, in verse 36, after he had told Nebuchadnezzar this dream. And I think it's interesting because he was no different than the kings and rulers of even today. You remember when he had this dream and could not remember the dream, and he called all of his wise men, all of his leaders in and said, somebody tell me what this is about. If not, I'm going to kill all of you. And he would have. Life meant nothing. It was cheap.

Then, in verse 36, after he had told the dream, he said, now we will tell the king what it means, your majesty. You are the greatest of kings. The God of heaven has given you sovereignty, power, strength, and honor. He has made you the ruler over all the inhabited world, and has put even the wild animals and birds under your control. You are the head of gold, if you remember his dream.

And it's interesting because after he had told what this vision meant, this tower of statue of gold and silver and bronze and clay, in verse 46, said, then Nebuchadnezzar threw himself down before Daniel and worshiped him, and commanded his people to offer sacrifices and burn sweet incense before him. The king said to Daniel, truly your God is the greatest of gods, the Lord over the kings, a revealer of mysteries, for you have been able to reveal this secret. So here this powerful king actually says, oh, I love your God now, because you see there in the middle of battle on the largest of all the buildings was the temple of Marduk, which was his main god at the time. He had many gods, but Marduk was the main one. And so he realized that here was another god that was pretty powerful. And so just like most psychopaths, like most narcissistic rulers, kings, emotion changes greatly, very quickly. All of a sudden he's ready to kill all these people, and then all of a sudden somebody tells him what he wants to know, and, ah, I like you now. Can you see how it would be tough being in Daniel, Meshach, Shadrach, and Abednego's place? So then this great king has believed that Daniel was given this great position and was actually second in command and was given the opportunity to rule over a lot of this conquered world. And so most theologians believe that at this time Daniel was then going to take care of some things on the other side of the kingdom because he doesn't make an appearance or nothing is even mentioned about him in chapter 3 of Daniel. But his three friends Meshach, Shadrach, and Abednego are there. And because Nebuchadnezzar loved this vision that Daniel had about his dream and this statue and how his head was of gold, he decided to build then this great statue on the plains of Shinar because the land is pretty flat there. So Nebuchadnezzar, the narcissistic person that he was, decided to have built this huge statue, monument to himself, so that people from miles around as they came into the plains could see the statue that was 90 foot tall and nine foot wide. And it was a statue of him. And it was believed to be made of brick and then it was coated on the outside with gold. And so it may even be that when the music was to be played, that everybody would come over and fall down and worship towards this statue to which his leaders, three of his key leaders, Meshach, Shadrach, and Abednego said, no, can no can do. Well, you usually do not say no, as most people found out when they said no to Saddam Hussein. Life became very short, as it happens even at Nebuchadnezzar. And so we move to chapter three. And so the other leaders who were also jealous of Meshach, Shadrach, and Abednego, because here these Jews come in, three of them, they may be smarter and everything, but why should they rule over their own countrymen? Why should they be put in charge? So they made sure that the king knew that they, as verse chapter three and around verse 12 says, they refused to serve your gods and do not worship the gold statue you have set up. Then in verse 13, then Nebuchadnezzar did what?

He flew into a rage! Oh, nothing new here then, is it? Somebody didn't do what he was, they were told to do, and like a child, you get upset. Then Nebuchadnezzar flew into a rage and ordered that Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego be brought before him. When they were brought in, Nebuchadnezzar said to them, is it true? Here he was, all of a sudden he looked at these guys and you know, he realized how much they had done for him, how they could benefit him. And he said, is it true? Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, that you refuse to serve my gods and to worship the gold statue I have set up? I will give you one more chance to bow down and worship the statue I have made when you hear the sound of the musical instruments. But if you refuse, you will be thrown immediately into the blazing furnace. Remember all those bricks they have to make? They have a huge brick oven that will cook human flesh faster than birth.

And then what God will be able to rescue you from my power?

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego replied, O Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you. If we are thrown in the blazing furnace, the God whom we serve is able to save us. He will rescue us from your power, your majesty. But even if he doesn't, we want to make it clear to you, your majesty, that we will never serve your gods or worship the gold statue you have set up. He laid down the gauntlet pretty clear to a man that did not like gauntlets laid down except by himself. In verse 19, Nebuchadnezzar was so furious that Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego that his face became distorted with rage. He commanded that the furnace be heated seven times hotter than usual. And then we know the story. He called his bravest men forward and said, bound them, bound them in their own clothes, and take them and throw them in this furnace that's seven times hotter than it's ever been. And they throw them in, as a matter of fact, when they threw them into this oven, the strong men that threw them in, they were killed by just the heat itself. Just getting close to it burnt them up.

And here Nebuchadnezzar is sitting with his rulers with his assistants, and they're sitting there watching these men be thrown in, and all of a sudden he looks and goes, what?

Didn't we just throw three in here? Yes, sir, Majesty. But there's four in there, and one has the appearance of the Son of God.

Can you imagine the thought that went through his mind? And he says, come out of there! Meshach, Shadrach, and B'ednego, and as scriptures actually say that you couldn't even... there was not a hair sin, you couldn't even smell any burn of their clothes.

Can you maybe see or hear a few knees knocking of those guys who made sure that they were thrown in there? That they couldn't be killed, and the fourth beam didn't come out?

And then in chapter 3 and verse 28 said, then Nebuchadnezzar said, praise to God of Meshach, Shadrach, and B'ednego. He sent his angel to rescue his servants who trusted in him. They defied the king's command and were willing to die rather than serve or worship any god except for their own god. Therefore, I make this decree if any people, whatever their race or nation or language, speak a word against the god of Meshach, Shadrach, and B'ednego. They will be torn limb from limb. He's such a rational guy. And their houses will be turned into heaps of rubble. There is no other god who can rescue like this. Then the king promoted Shadrach, Meshach, and B'ednego. Those three guys that he wanted to kill just 10 minutes before to even higher positions in the province of Babylon. And then we move to chapter four as we wrap this up. King Nebuchadnezzar sent this message to the people of every race and nation and language throughout the world. He said, peace and prosperity to you. I want you all to know that about the miraculous signs and wonders the most high god has performed for me.

How great are his signs, how powerful his wonders. His kingdom will last forever and his rule throughout all generations.

And then we see that he has another dream. And he needs Daniel to explain the dream. And you can read all about the dream.

And he tells him what's about to happen to him. Personally, what's going to happen to Nebuchadnezzar. He says in verse 24, this is what the dream means. Your majesty and what the most high has declared will happen to my Lord the King. You will be driven from the human society and you will live in the fields with the wild animals. You will eat grass like a cow and you will be drenched with the dew of heaven. Seven periods of time will pass while you live this way until you learn the most high rules over the kingdoms of the world and gives them to anyone he chooses. But the stump and the roots of the tree were left in the ground. That means that you will receive your kingdom back again when you have learned that heaven rules. King Nebuchadnezzar, please accept my advice. Stop sinning and do what is right. Break from your wicked past and be merciful to the poor. Perhaps then you will continue to prosper. And what did he do? Verse 21. But all these things did happen to King Nebuchadnezzar. 12 months after he was told this vision of what was going to happen to him, unless he repented and turned back to God.

12 months later, as he was walking on the flat roof of the royal palace in Babylon, can you imagine the view? Can you imagine seeing the gardens, seeing everything, seeing this humongous city, 300 foot tall walls, all the beauty that is there? And he looked out across the city and said, look at this great city of Babylon. By my own mighty power, I have built this beautiful city as my royal residence to display my majestic splendor. While these words were still in his mouth, a voice called down from heaven, O King Nebuchadnezzar, this message is for you. You are no longer ruler of this kingdom. You will be driven from human society. You will live in the fields with the wild animals and you will eat grass like a cow. Most, he said, you must learn that the most high rules over the kingdoms of the world and gives them to anyone he chooses. And he did. He became like an animal for seven years. Eight grass, his hair grew long, given his fingernails became like, as they say, birds. And all he did was wander around in fields. Verse 34, after this time had passed, here is where he says this. He writes this so that we would know. Verse 34, I, Nebuchadnezzar, looked up to heaven, this animal-like creature.

My sanity returned and I praised and worshiped the most high and honored the one who lives forever. He says his rule is everlasting and his kingdom is eternal. All the people of the earth are nothing compared to him. He does as he pleases among the angels of heaven and among the peoples of earth. No one can stop him or say to him, what do you mean by doing these things? When my sanity returned to me, so did my honor and glory and kingdom. My advisors and nobles sought me out and I was restored as head of the kingdom with even greater honor than before. Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise and glorify and honor the King of heaven. All his acts are just and true and he is able to humble the proud.

I guess that's why in Deuteronomy 8 verse 18 it says that God grants the power to get wealth.

Bill Gates, he only has it because God has given him the power.

All the billionaires, all the millionaires, God has that power. Not only does he have power over the kingdom, he has power over everyone and he gives that power to whomever he chooses.

Colossians 1, I'll read that. You don't have to turn there. Colossians 1 verse 15.

Colossians 1 verse 15 said, Christ is a visible image of the invisible God. He existed before anything was created and is supreme over all creation. For through him God created everything in the heavenly realm and on earth. He made the things that we can see and the things we can't see, such as thrones, kingdoms, rulers, and authorities in the unseen world. Everything was created through him and for him.

The doctrine of the sovereignty of God, we must embrace it.

God used Nebuchadnezzar and when Nebuchadnezzar looked to God, he was fine. But when he turned away and went after what he wanted, the last of the flesh, the pride of life.

Look what happened.

What would it take, or what will it take, for you to embrace the doctrine of the sovereignty of God? What will God have to do for you to know that he reigns supreme in your life? Because, see, he's working with us.

You're not out there today driving, doing whatever you want to do. R.C. Sproul, theologian.

He made a statement one time, and I love that statement. Made the statement that said, God owns what he makes, and he rules what he owns. Let me say that again. God owns what he makes and rules what he owns. Brethren, he owns us.

All these kings, all these rulers, all these dictators, they're only there because God has allowed them there. He will put and he will remove every one of them. Brethren, let us make sure that we embrace, we hug, we accept that doctrine, the policy that God is the supreme ruler over everything, all the time, no matter what the condition is. Next week, we'll have part two of the sovereignty of God, except next week we get personal because we make it about God and us in a sermon titled, The Potter and the Clay.

Remember, this week, win your prayers and your thoughts.

That God is sovereign, should be sovereign, is sovereign.

We just have to remember it and we have to apply it and he will never ever, just like Meshach, Shadrach, and Abednego, he will not forsake them because they remembered the sovereignty of God.