The Special Grace Found in God's Sovereignty

The sovereignty of God is one of the most profound mysteries we will ever encounter in the life of faith. That God reigns over all things, even the evil and deadly things, troubles every armchair theologian, as well as many serious scholars.

You've wrestled with it as well. If you've ever wondered why evil exists if God is all good, you're actually asking about His sovereignty. If you wonder why bad things happen to good people, you've wrestled with His sovereignty. If you wonder how God can elect some to salvation and demand people respond in repentance for their sins, you've wrestled with His sovereignty. 

And yet Biblical writers have absolutely no problem talking about God's sovereignty over the affairs of the world - even the affairs that trouble us. Consider the agent of God's judgment against Israel, the nation of Assyria. They decimated Syria and stood poised to bring trouble upon the Northern kingdom of Israel. Here's how Isaiah describes that nation:

Isaiah 10:5–6 (ESV) Woe to Assyria, the rod of my anger; the staff in their hands is my fury! 6 Against a godless nation I send him, and against the people of my wrath I command him, to take spoil and seize plunder, and to tread them down like the mire of the streets.

Here is Isaiah pronouncing woe on Assyria. God will judge this nation for bringing destruction on His people in the Northern divided Kingdom. YET... look at what He calls Assyria: "the rod of my anger". God says I am using the evil of Assyria to judge my own people and I will judge them for what they do to my people. 

Notice the next verse in the New Living Translation:

Isaiah 10:7 (NLT) But the king of Assyria will not understand that he is my tool; his mind does not work that way. His plan is simply to destroy, to cut down nation after nation.

This is particularly interesting. God is not informing the king of Assyria of these intentions. He's not giving him a heads-up. He does not have to. He is God. Yet God is going to use what the king of Assyria wants to do to accomplish God's ultimate plan and purpose. 

Then once again, God clearly states that Assyria's king will be punished for this. 

Isaiah 10:12 (ESV) When the Lord has finished all his work on Mount Zion and on Jerusalem, he will punish the speech of the arrogant heart of the king of Assyria and the boastful look in his eyes.

Notice as well that Isaiah describes all this as the work of the Lord!

What is that all about? That is God's sovereignty on display. 

Now we don't understand this. We don't understand because we are human. And that is what makes us human and what makes God GOD. He is over us and beyond us. And we are not asked to understand this completely, we are asked to trust it. That is what faith is - trusting God even when we don't fully understand Him. 

Later in the chapter, Isaiah uses an illustration to describe what we consider difficult to understand. 

Isaiah 10:15 (ESV) Shall the axe boast over him who hews with it, or the saw magnify itself against him who wields it? As if a rod should wield him who lifts it, or as if a staff should lift him who is not wood!

In the end, Assyria, Israel, you, and I are tools in the hand of God. My hammer has never asked me why I swing it and hit hard objects with it. If it had feelings I'm sure it would have questions. But I know what I'm doing with my hammer. 

God knows what He's doing with you. Even when you don't understand, you must look to Him in faith. He is accomplishing something in you and through you. Even dark and evil things can be used to refine and shape you. What can you do? Be comfortable to be used. Be at ease knowing you don't have to know. He knows, and that's all that matters.