Well, we are looking at the attributes of God, and we have an acronym that someone was trying to eliminate. So by way of quiz, because repetition is the mother of knowledge, what does Sir J. Louie stand for? Working from the top, what is the S? And the shift mayors may be ruled out of this activity. Sovereign. Sovereign, right? That's an easy one. We're looking at that first. So Sir J. Louis, you know, you think of a great and mighty knight, right? He's Sir J, middle name, whatever that is, maybe Jacob, Jordan, Jerusalem, J. Louis. So what is R? Righteous. Righteous. So God is sovereign. He is righteous. J, just, he is just. L, love, God is love. Now remember, an important prerequisite to this is that we don't create a universal above God. What does that mean? That it's not God is something out of love, but God is actually the definition of love. Right, so an easy way to test this is ask yourself, if God didn't exist, would love exist? No, but sometimes we do that in our thinking where we think of love as kind of some universal abstract thing that one day God was shopping in the cosmos and he looked on the shelf and saw love and said, yeah, I think I'll, I'll obtain a little bit of that. Or I'm going to, I really need to work on trying to be more loving. No, God is love. Love is defined by God as well as all of these things. Sovereignty, righteous, justice. What about O? omnipresence omnipotence omnipotence omnipotence omnipotence omnipotence omnipotence omnipotence omnipotence omnipotence omnipotence omnipotence omnipotence omnipotence Can't hide, right? His eyes are everywhere. And there's a lot of, especially in prophecy, there's depictions of something with many eyes. The book of Zechariah talks about this. There's a, the altar has eyes all over it. And it's, I think, often signifying, or it's a figure of God's omniscience. He sees all things. David was famously saying, where can I go to escape your presence? I can make my bed in Sheol, and lo, you are there. And so everywhere present. Now, what is omnipotence? Potent. Power, right? So if something is, oh, this coffee is potent, we're saying it's powerful. So God is all powerful. What does that mean? More than coffee. More than coffee. I was thinking about that this morning. Yeah. How powerful he is. I mean, he created this universe, making sure it stays its place. Yes. And then he's getting all the prayers from all the saints. And all of this stuff is happening. It's hard to believe that a lot of Christians will put God in a little box when he's just a jihugical person or spirit. Well, and you think, so speaking of the Grand Canyon, right? And I like the phrase jihugical. I'm going to use it. The Grand Canyon is jihugical, right? And what created that? A lot of water. Have you ever seen a massive storm? Growing up in southern Utah, there's a lot of flash floods that happen. And one time in particular, there was a flash flood that was eating away at this cliff and these houses start falling in. And it was, I remember it's like a train wreck. You just got to go see it, right? So we would take drives and go watch this stuff. And it was just that immense power. You know, when we lived up in lakes or near Lake Superior, watching the waves in the winter, it's powerful. It's intimidating. And God holds the universe together. How much power does that take? A lot, right? Now again, this is another area, we don't create a universal. So when we think of God being all powerful, does that mean God can do anything? Anything. Anything. Anything that follows his character. Right, so there's more to the story, right? Now, we know anything according to his will, he can do it, right? As the saying goes, can God make a rock so big that he can't lift it? Silly question, right? The answer to it is yes. He can do, or the answer is no, because why would he do something so frivolous? But we have to understand God and these attributes in light of what God reveals about himself. This is the self-disclosure of God to man. We understand our creator by opening, reading, and looking at his book. Yes. Yes. Cause like for kids, omnipresence can be difficult, right? You know, cause they're like, so God's in the tree and God's in the rock. Right. God's in my bed and you know, on and on. Takes on a mystical. Right, exactly. And so the description I heard is saying, you know, trying to kind of come out, it's like, maybe it's not so good to think of like God is present in everything. Like he is everywhere, but that all of creation, all things are present before him. Yes, sure. And like he kind of flips it. Sure. And it says the same thing, but it doesn't lead to panentheism. Right. You know, it says omnipresence is the idea that all things are present before God at all times and instances. Right. And that's good, right? Because we don't want to get the idea of God is all and in all. And, you know, we too are God. That's what people believe in Eastern mystic religions. But I like that because everything is present before him. He sees all things. Now we get developments because of the doctrine of progressive revelation, where we now know God indwells believers. So God is with you wherever you go. There's nowhere you can go to escape that. Once you're a believer, he's with you. Before you're a believer, he sees all, so he still knows, but he is with you wherever you go, and that should change the way that we live. So we'll talk more about that when we cover the Os, but that's a good one. Omniscience, all science. All science, all knowledge. He knows everything because everything is present. Are there a lot of really complex things in the universe? And God spoke and it happened. And it continues to happen. You know, I think about the cycles. Titus was asking me, where does rain come from? And so I explained kind of to best of my knowledge, the water cycle and how that works. And I said, God made it that way. And there's so many cycles you see in just our earth, let alone the universe. I also was thinking the other day about Orion's belt, you know, the asteroid belt. What a really ingenious protection, you know, as asteroids and we're just a tiny speck in the universe and God just created it that that kind of protects us from a lot of incoming asteroids and whatnot. But all sorts of things as you look at things on a scientific level, you are looking at God's handiwork in the face. What about I? Immutable. What does that mean? You can't press mute? Unchanging. That should be a tremendous comfort to you, right? Especially when you think about God is also one who makes promises. So if he makes promises and he's immutable, what does that mean? He doesn't change. If God shows grace and he is gracious and he is loving, what does that mean? He is always gracious. He's always loving. If He shows wrath and justice and retribution, He is those things all the time. So we have to understand this lest we fall into the Gnostic way of thinking of, yeah, that God of the Old Testament, you know, we kind of avoid Him. We don't talk about Him. We like the God of the New Testament, right? Jesus was loving and kind and, you know, He's really, He smelt nice. We liked listening to Him speak. you know, those sort of things. And that's where, and I say that somewhat jokingly, but if you listen to a lot of modern worship, it's basically, the term is called theoeroticism. And my father-in-law calls it Jesus is my boyfriend. And that's kind of the thinking, right? Now, can we express our love for Christ and our love for God? Yes, but there comes a point where it crosses a line and we want to be mindful of how God reveals himself and how we should acclimate to that revelation. What about E? Or go ahead, before we go to E. I was going to say, I could also be integrity, which means all of those things work together. Yes. Yes. So maybe it's Sergei Louie. Sergei Louie. Well, you could just put, you make it an actual star. S-I-R. S-I-R, yeah. You could. I don't want to mess too much with Charlie Clough's But yes, integrity, right? They all work. And that's another important thing we have to keep in mind when God is showing or exemplifying His justice. Did you just flip the switch on love? I'm going to turn that off right now. God is, that's why I love that name. Who shall I say sent me? I am. Oh, okay. And so God is all of these things all of the time. Now, yes, there may be certain situations or occasions where one is being more emphasized in the text, but that's relative to us, right? We're seeing God exemplify his justice, but that doesn't mean he's not loving in this situation. In fact, if you look at it closely, it's usually because he loves. And I heard this in a sermon illustration. I won't tell you the pastor because he's not a good pastor now. But he once said that he never understood the concept of justice until he had a daughter. And he had a daughter and he held her for the first time and he said, I would destroy anyone who sought to harm this child that I love. And that's, you know, while finite, that's a good picture of the love of God, right? Oftentimes his wrath is being demonstrated because of his love and protection for people. In fact, in the Old Testament, if God didn't flood the world, what would happen? he would have to destroy everyone and start over, right? But he loved Noah, he had a plan, he knew Christ would come and billions of people, trillions perhaps, would be saved as a result. And so that love is often what causes God to act in ways relative to us seem, well, you're just being judgmental, God. Well, first of all, who are we to say that to God? E, what is E? Eternal. Now some, it might be nitpicky to you, but some say like we don't have eternal life, we have everlasting life. And what that is distinguishing is eternal means there's no beginning and no end, right? But there was a time when we didn't have long, long, long, long, long infinite life, right? before Christ, we didn't have that. So everlasting is there's a start point, but it never ends. We have everlasting life. Now, I don't think that's worth fighting over, but the eternality of God is, there is no beginning. And this was a question I had fun trying to answer with Baker. He said, well, who created God? I said, nobody. God was in the beginning. In the beginning was God. And he said, well, what was before the beginning? God. And so that's hard for us to understand. But all that God reveals about it is, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. But with that, we also learn certain things later in scripture that God's eternal. He always has been. No beginning, no end. But the problem with a lot of people, you know, I had it at one time, is everything's created. But God wasn't. He's always been. But it's still in my mind, so wait a minute, how can it be always been? Everything's created, but that's my finite mind. It just can't think in the level that he's always been. Right. Eternality is like the one I have the hardest time. Yeah. Like all the others, like, oh, he knows everything. OK, cool. I'm fine. I know. Oh, he's all powerful. Yeah, OK. That's why I'm like, you start thinking about, oh, he didn't. Wait, but wait, how's that work? Right. You just keep going back, and he's still there. it's just it's so good one of my most vivid memories when i was really little probably baker's age i i remember thinking about this concept of what was life like before God created. And I tried to envision nothing and I couldn't, even as a child. And I can't quite articulate what exactly I saw in my mind as I was thinking those thoughts, but to this day, I still remember kind of trying to do that. And part of that is I think God has put eternity in our hearts. We are made in the image of God. So there's a concept or there's something within us that understands it to some degree. but not perfectly on a infinite level, right? All right, so now getting into the text, we've looked at some of these already, but God is sovereign. I explained that like all of these, we have to not create a universal, we need to understand sovereignty in light of what God reveals about his sovereignty. So Genesis 1.1, what does that tell us about God's sovereignty? He created everything, which means He has the right and the only right to speak, make changes to His creation, judge in His creation. This gets at the Creator-Creature distinction. God is in a category by Himself. That's what holiness means. He is set apart. He is separate. He is unstained. He's unmixed by sin or any of those things that are a result of the fall. So God is creator. What about Genesis 6? What do we learn about God's sovereignty there? He has a right to judge. He has a right to judge. In fact, all of us will be judged. Every single person who has had the breath of life will be judged. and in many cases has been judged in a temporal sense. In this life, they faced God's judgment. But we will all stand before God, whether it's at the behemoth seat of Christ or at the great white throne judgment, believers will be at the behemoth seat. We'll be standing before our Savior. And it won't be to, all right, are you really saved? Let's look over your life. Let's look at your good works and see if you're really saved. That's not in question. In fact, salvation is not in question in either of these judgments. It's rewards or loss of rewards for the believer at the beam of seat. And then personally, and I, I'm willing to be corrected. There seems to be an allowance for a degree of punishment, perhaps at the great white throne, you know, those who were more evil or more wicked or whatever. Uh, again, that's hard to really explain. We're not given a whole lot of information. That's why I hold that very. tentatively, but they're still judged by their works. I would agree with you, because you know, you can't, there's a little old lady at the end of the street that hasn't really done anything wrong, just does not believe in Christ, and Hitler. Right, right. You're not going to give them the same thing. Just, right? God is just. So whatever he does, it will be just. But I think that would certainly fit with his justice. But here's the other thing with his justice at the great white throne judgment. What were all those people who are going to stand before God trying to justify themselves with? Their works. What does God judge them with? Their works. Perfect justice and showing how they fall short. But I think we also see degrees when Jesus says it will be more tolerable for them, speaking of Sodom and Gomorrah, than it will be for you in the day of judgment. So there seems to be degrees. Now, I wouldn't recommend getting a lighter sentence, so to speak. Trust Christ and avoid all that entirely. Tower of Babel. How does God show his sovereignty at the Tower of Babel? Okay, confusing language, which means, do you think God knows all those languages? You think God needs to take two, three years of Greek and Hebrew to write his word in Greek and Hebrew? No, what language are we going to speak in heaven, by the way? Probably Hebrew. I asked my professor, does that mean when we're in the kingdom, we don't have to learn Hebrew? Will we have kind of that supernatural? Or are we getting a head start on everyone else? He didn't answer. So the Tower of Babel, he confused their language. How does that show his sovereignty? Why did he confuse their language? It was a judgment, right? Judgment why? They were working together, right? They were playing nicely. If your kids are playing nicely, are you as a parent gonna rush in and separate them? What if they're playing nicely with a knife? Yeah, right? It's a bad thing that they were doing together. And so God separated them. And if you look at it more closely and more deeply, it really has, important ramifications for society. God did it for a reason that is a restraint on evil. What is a restraint on evil? What do I mean by that? Whispers and murmurs. Be bold. What is restraint on evil? Yeah, keeping things like the pre-flood world, right, from happening. So we have the flood was a pretty good restraint on evil. God said, my spirit shall not strive with men. So we see the spirit of God is a restraint on evil. He issues human government so that as a restraint for people running around and killing each other, God gave the sword, so to speak, to human government, to if someone kills someone, their life is to be taken. through the government. And so we see that, we see marriage as a divine institution, which is also, I think, a restraint on evil. How is marriage a restraint on evil? What happens if marriage is failing or declining in a nation? Is that nation healthy? No. Where are we at in America? falling apart at the seams, right? Why? Is it because of politics? Partly, partly to blame. I would say we share some of that blame, don't we? As individuals, even as the church. I think we share all of it. I mean, our best judgment is the worst. Sure. But what I'm saying is we are partly to blame, right? As a church, we should be promoting marriages. We should be helping marriages. We should be building strong marriages because what comes out of strong marriages? Another divine institution, family, our kids. And again, I've talked about homeschool, public school. It does not matter what you, as a couple, decide to do with your children. But it is up to you to make sure that they are being thoroughly equipped and trained. And if that works more conveniently for you or better through a public education center, that's fine. But are you involved? And I've also seen the opposite extreme. Homeschool families that just set their kid in front of a computer and just have no clue what they're learning. I think it's Christian curriculum, I'm not sure. Are we involved as parents with our kids? And that's another cycle, right? We get the water cycle, we have generation cycles where how did Paul reveal to Timothy how it should be done? Older men teach younger men, older women teach younger women. and it creates that healthy cross-generational cycle. But what do we also have in the church today? I'm looking for a church that's younger. I don't want all these grumpy old people that are stuck in their ways, right? Have you ever wondered why older people are stuck in their ways? Or grumpy. Perhaps they've seen a thing or two, right? And they see the nonsense that us younger people are doing. And they're frustrated by it. But we have this generational warfare that is It should not be. That is against God's design for the church, against creation. In fact, what was the leadership in Israel? Elders, right? Now at that time, they were literally physically older people. Now that term, I think, as it gets into the church, when we talk about elders, it's speaking of a spiritual maturity that even someone who's not necessarily elderly can be, quote, elder in the church. So Tower Babel, national diversity. God split it up so that as long as the nations can't unite, it will restrain evil. It will keep mankind from rebelling against God. So only one nation or a couple nations can rebel, and God can deal with that. And he did, right? So Sodom and Gomorrah, they were rebelling against God, and God judged them. Yeah. I never really understood why they rebelled. What were they doing that God didn't building the tower? Well, so there's a couple explanations as to why they were building the tower. Like Josephus, a historian, for example, said that they were doing it because if God decided to flood the world, they'd have a place to go. Doubtful, but possible. The text tells us they were doing it to make a name for themselves. And I heard that they did it because they say, well, look at now we can be God because we're way up there. Look what we did. I think that's a part of it. But also what did God tell man to do? Multiply, multiply, subdue the earth, not congregate, gather, build a tower. Is that what God said? No. So that's part of that rebellion is they weren't listening to God's creative mandate to go out and multiply. They were supposed to be a gigantic tower. What happened to it? Destroyed. Dust. So then we have 12, 1 through 3. What happens in Genesis 12, 1 through 3? How does God show sovereignty there? Singles out a man. and gives him promises. Now, is it kind of the promises we like to give, like maybe to our kids? You know, I promise to take care of you and provide and protect for you. Or is there more substance to God's promise? Because he also is omnipotent and omniscient and he's sovereign. So that means he kind of has a say in the fulfillment of those promises, right? And that's what we see. God issues promises that are world-changing. It literally changed the world when God made those promises to Abraham. What about Genesis 25, 21 through 23? What's talked about there? The references might help. Malachi 1, 2, and 3, and Romans 9, 13. A hint, my name is used in the text. When I was biblically illiterate and ignorant, but trying to become more, being a better Bible reader, I remember reading that, oh, God loves me. Now, yes, there's other passages that I can draw that conclusion, but that's not one of them, right? That's not what God is saying. Jacob, I have loved, Esau, I have hated. It's kind of a Hebrew parallelism. It's a parallelism of contrast showing that he chose Jacob, he didn't choose Esau. And we saw that spoken of in Genesis 25, when before they were even born, what did God tell Rebekah? Two are in your womb, two nations, and they will strive together and the older shall serve the younger. So it means the second baby out is gonna be the younger, right? We have twins, right? Which one's older and younger? Okay, so you gotta serve her. We serve each other, right? But they were twins and God chose Jacob, not Esau, before they were even born. So it wasn't based on their works. It wasn't based on their behavior. It wasn't based on their appearance. God simply said before they were born that this is going to happen. Yeah. I think that Jacob was the recipient of the transferred blessing from Abraham to Isaac. Now to Jacob, not Esau. And then we see that unfold. But God issues his sovereignty there, right? They didn't strive for it. In fact, well, they did strive for it, right? But that's what I love about that narrative is you see Jacob often, it seems like he's trying to give it back to Esau. When he's coming back into the land, he sees 400 of Esau's men. And what does he do? He's giving all these gifts to Esau and he's calling Esau Lord. He's putting himself, it's almost like he's saying, here, take it. I don't want any beef with you, except you can have my beef as a gift, right? And so we see that conflict, but there was nothing Jacob, Jacob couldn't give that to him. It wasn't his to give, right? Because God chose Jacob. What about the book of Joshua? What is Joshua about? The conquest. How does God show us sovereignty in the conquest? It's related to the Tower of Babel in a... roundabout way, right? So God created national diversity. There's other passages, I think it's in Acts, that talks about he sets their boundaries. Well, he could also remove their boundaries. And in this context, he removed their boundaries because of their wickedness, and he was giving that land to Israel and establishing their boundaries. And so we see his sovereignty in the conquest. Go to 2 Kings chapter 19. 2 Kings, right after 1 Kings. Chapter 19, right after chapter 18, just before chapter 20. And in verse 20 of chapter 19 of 2 Kings, It says this, Then Isaiah, the son of Amos, sent to Hezekiah, saying, Thus says the Lord God of Israel, Because you have prayed to me against Sennacherib, king of Assyria, I have heard. And what it got here? This is the word which the Lord has spoken concerning him. The virgin, the daughter of Zion, has despised you, laughed you to scorn. The daughter of Jerusalem has shaken her head behind your back. Whom have you reproached and blasphemed? Against whom have you raised your voice and lifted up your eyes on high? Against the Holy One of Israel. By your messengers you have reproached the Lord and said, by the multitude of my chariots I have come up to the height of the mountains. to the limits of Lebanon. I will cut down its tall cedars and its choice cypress trees. I will enter the extremity of its borders." So a little bit of pride there. Verse 24, "'I have dug and drunk strange water, and with the soles of my feet I have dried up all the brooks of the defense.'" So they're boasting in their army size, essentially, their own abilities rather than trusting in God, saying, God, I did this, not you. Verse 25, did you not hear long ago how I made it from ancient times that I formed it? Now I have brought it to pass that you should be for crushing fortified cities into heaps of ruins. Therefore their inhabitants had little power. They were dismayed and confounded. They were as grass of the field and the green herb as the grass on the housetops and grain blighted before it's grown. But I know your dwelling place, you're going out, you're coming in and you rage against me because your rage against me and your tumult have come up to my ears. Therefore, I will put my hook in your nose and my bridle in your lips and I will turn you back. by the way which you came. This shall be a sign to you, you shall eat this year such as grows of itself, and in the second year what springs from the same, also in the third year sow and replant vineyards and eat the fruit of them. And the remnant who have escaped the house of Judah shall again take root downward and bear fruit upward, for out of Jerusalem shall go a remnant, and those who escape from Mount Zion to the zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this." So what is God saying here? How does this show his sovereignty? He's determining these things, right? He's telling them what they're going to do, when they can plant, when they can harvest and what it's going to be like. He's in control of that concerning Israel. And I love that language. He says, I will put my hook. in your nose and my bridle in your lips." In other words, I'm going to turn things around for you. Then he talks about the king of Assyria, verse 32. Therefore, thus says the Lord concerning the king of Assyria, he shall not come into this city, nor shoot an arrow there, nor come before it with a shield, nor build a siege mound against it. By the way that he came, by the same shall he return, and he shall not come into this city, says the Lord. For I will defend this city to save it for my own sake and for my servant David's sake. So how does God show his sovereignty there? Who are the Assyrians? A great and mighty nation. Prior to Babylon, they eventually took over the northern kingdom of Israel, the 10 tribes. And the 10 tribes were assimilated. And many of individuals even went down to the southern kingdom. But how does God use Assyria with Israel? bring them against them, right? And as a judgment for them forsaking the law and the covenant, he uses Assyria to judge them. But in this context, what is God telling them? Look back at verse 20. Thus says the Lord God, to Hezekiah, because you have prayed to me against Sennacherib, king of Assyria, I have heard. And then he says all these things. So there's a temporary reprieve, so to speak, because of this prayer. Does prayer change things? If God is sovereign, why pray? Well, God is sovereign and he prayed and it changed something. So maybe we should change the way we think about sovereignty. I mentioned, you know, some take it to an extreme of deterministic where you notice the specks of dust or the sunbeam in your window coming in in the morning. God preordained that that would happen. Every choice, every decision you make was because God determined it. Well, if we go down that road, There's a really difficult explanation that we have to explain the origin of evil, right? And we're left with explaining that. Or we can look at how does God present his sovereignty, and how does that work in relation to his creation? And here, prayer matters. It changes things. Yeah. I was going to say, it seems to be kind of like most of these issues, right? Where if you go to either extreme, you end up in kind of a heresy, because if you go to extreme determinism, you've got that issue with evil, you've got that issue with a lot of things. But if you go with such a loose view of sovereignty, that it's just God knows everything, and knows everything that will happen, and that's all sovereignty is, well, now you lose his control in creation, and in the world, so it's kind of like there are both, right? He knows and determines, and yet there's a deterministic factor, but also just a knowing factor and kind of merging those two. Like most issues in the Bible, it seems like you have to merge in the middle and try to spread both sides. And sometimes like this, there's a healthy tension, right? But we have to look closely at the text of how God functions with this quality that He defines and how that is worked out in His creation. For sake of time, go to Daniel chapter 2. Daniel chapter 2 and verse 31. This is the vision, the first vision that Nebuchadnezzar has of this statue. And in the explanation of the statue, Starting in verse 31, Daniel says this. You, O king, were watching and behold a great image. This great image, whose splendor was excellent, stood before you, and its form was awesome. This image's head was of fine gold, its chest and arms of silver, its belly and thighs of bronze, its leg of iron, its feet partly of iron and partly of clay. You watched while a stone was cut out without hands, which struck the image on its feet of iron and clay and broke them in pieces. Then the iron and clay and the bronze and silver and the gold were crushed together and became like shaft from the summer threshing floors. The wind carried them away so that no trace of them was found. And the stone that struck the image became a great mountain and filled the whole earth. This is the dream. Now we will tell the interpretation of it before the king. You, O king, are king of kings, for the God of heaven has given you a kingdom. Who gave Nebuchadnezzar his kingdom? God. God. Might we deduce that he did that with Persia and Greece and Rome also. Verse 38, wherever the children of men dwell or the beasts of the field and the birds of the heaven, he has given them into your hand and has made you a ruler over them. You are this head of gold. So we're seeing a trend, OK? He's now the head of gold. I've given you the next one is Persia, meadow Persia some say. Greece is the leg, legs of, or no. kingdom of bronze which shall rule over the earth inferior to yours yeah the the legs belly and thighs So the point is these are four subsequent nations. And then what does he say? A stone cut without hands will crush these, what we now know are kingdoms, which, what does that tell us about the stone? What is it? A kingdom and it grows and fills the whole earth. Is that a good kingdom or a bad kingdom? Do you think? It's the kingdom. I think it's the messianic kingdom. And so he says, jump down to verse 43. As you saw iron mixed with ceramic clay, they will mingle with the seed of men, but they will not adhere to one another, just as iron does not mix with clay. And in the days of these kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed, and the kingdom shall not be left to other people. It shall break in pieces and consume all of these kingdoms, and it shall stand forever. God will do this. This demonstrates His sovereignty. Not only His sovereignty in crushing all the available kingdoms, but He determines these kingdoms. Who gave the kingdom to Nebuchadnezzar? Who let the Persians conquer Babylon? Who let the Greeks conquer Persia and the Romans conquer the Greeks? God. That's why I love the book of Daniel, because you see the sovereignty of God and him telling these things to Nebuchadnezzar before there was a Persian, before there was a Greece, before there was a Rome. As far as an empire, they existed, but they weren't on the empire stage. How can God do that? He's omniscient and he's sovereign. And he decreed that that would happen. And it's paving the way for his kingdom to be established. So real quick, by way of summary, we learn about the sovereignty of God. God is creator and therefore has a right to govern his universe. He's the only one with that right. And when he exercises that right, woe to us if we point the finger at him and say, how dare you do this or do that? He's God, not us. Now, I'm not saying that's easy. There's times when we don't understand why God might do something or might allow something, but His ways are not our ways, right? So we need to trust Him and have the mindset of Abraham, will not the God of all the earth do what is right? Yes, He will. God made world-changing promises to Abraham. Those promises affected history. I mentioned last week, all of the major world religions came from that man. Partly, many of those came from that man not willing to trust the Lord and the son of promise, but taking matters into his own hands. The descendants of Ishmael are the Arabic tribes who, lo and behold, are warring with the 12 tribes of Israel to this day. Abraham's kids fighting, right? You think your kids' sibling fights are terrible. God chose which child and subsequent nation would be his vehicle of fulfillment. Jacob I have loved, Esau I have hated. He chose Jacob, and through Jacob we get the Messiah. God moved Nebuchadnezzar to fulfill his discipline of Israel. This great and mighty king, at that time, the most mighty king. And God bossed him around like it was just a little toy or a play thing, used him. We didn't look at it, but Proverbs 21.1 says, the hearts of kings are in the hands of God and they flow like channels. God can move the hearts of kings. God moved Cyrus to restore Israel. That was all by God, right? God laid out the kingdom program from Babylon to the Messianic kingdom. He laid it out 500 years before it happened. He gave, especially in chapter 9, exact dates of when the Messiah would show up. Now, that's amazing to us, but it really shouldn't be if we understand who God is. If we understand His attributes, and we understand He's omniscient, we understand He's sovereign, we should say, of course. Of course it is the way that it is. Of course God declared the end from the beginning. God intervenes in His creation at His will. Not all the time, but he has, right? Sodom and Gomorrah, he intervened. The flood, he intervened. Tower of Babel, he intervened. We need to be careful with this when we say, oh, such and such a nation is having all these tornadoes and earthquakes and tsunamis because God is judging them. Could be, right? But we don't know. We don't have the word of God that tells us that's why it's happening. We live in a fallen world where those things happen all the time and we have to be able to recognize that. So any comments or questions before we close? All right. Well, I will