Latest / The Living Waters Podcast / Ep. 286 - The Sovereignty of God

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Ep. 286 - The Sovereignty of God · The Living Waters Podcast

• 1:04
  Mark Spence: The Lord does whatever pleases Him in the heavens and on the earth, and in the seas and all their depths.
• 1:10
  Mark Spence: Right, it's been said, you cannot subpoena God.
• 1:15
  Mark Spence: He does not answer to you.
• 1:16
  Mark Spence: How dare you incite God?
• 1:18
  Mark Spence: Right, he's in control of all things.
• 1:22
  Mark Spence: He knows all things.
• 1:24
  Mark Spence: Sproul worded it like this that there's not one maverick molecule in the universe that he's not aware of.
• 1:30
  Mark Spence: Right, that things are running its course as he sees fit.
• 1:34
  Mark Spence: Does not need your wisdom, does not need your counsel.
• 1:37
  Mark Spence: If he needed counsel, you would not know about it.
• 1:40
  Mark Spence: God is in heaven and he is ruling and reigning, with scepter in one hand, a gavel in the next, and when that gavel comes down, the court is dismissed, the jury can go home.
• 1:51
  Mark Spence: He will always have the final word, as he is the word incarnate, amen.
• 2:03
  Emeal Zwayne: So you're going on your daily 3.71 mile walk with your wife when you're in a familiar area and suddenly you seea skunk walking down the sidewalk.
• 2:17
  Emeal Zwayne: What do you do, gentlemen?
• 2:19
  Emeal Zwayne: You pet it, you get it and you have it as a pet, which is I.
• 2:25
  Emeal Zwayne: I've always wanted to do that, Ray, the closest you've ever gotten.
• 2:29
  Emeal Zwayne: Was that a badger that Ken Ham sent?
• 2:31
  Ray Comfort: you.
• 2:31
  Ray Comfort: It was a skunk, it was a skunk In the store.
• 2:34
  Emeal Zwayne: Oh, a dead petrified skunk.
• 2:35
  Emeal Zwayne: Yeah, yeah, well, we had a live one coming our way yesterday.
• 2:39
  Emeal Zwayne: They really are cute, seriously.
• 2:41
  Emeal Zwayne: Oh, they're adorable until they do their thing.
• 2:43
  Emeal Zwayne: I ran over one one time.
• 2:50
  Emeal Zwayne: Yeah, it was crazy.
• 2:50
  Emeal Zwayne: And what's my beautiful wife Rachel do?
• 2:51
  Emeal Zwayne: She pulls out her video camera.
• 2:52
  Emeal Zwayne: Hey, there's a skank.
• 2:53
  Oscar Navarro: What's wrong with that?
• 2:53
  Oscar Navarro: I thought she would run.
• 2:55
  Emeal Zwayne: Like father, like daughter?
• 2:56
  Emeal Zwayne: I thought she would run.
• 2:56
  Emeal Zwayne: What were you going to say?
• 2:58
  Emeal Zwayne: Like father, like daughter Was this after your meeting, Skanky skanky, skanky.
• 3:03
  Mark Spence: Was this after your meeting with that gentleman down in Huntington?
• 3:05
  Mark Spence: No, it wasn't yesterday, it was the day before yesterday.
• 3:08
  Emeal Zwayne: Your wife had dinner at her house last night.
• 3:09
  Emeal Zwayne: I know we weren't there together.
• 3:13
  Emeal Zwayne: Yeah, I did my meeting at Huntington, but you know what's cool We've been doing these walks 3.71 miles.
• 3:19
  Ray Comfort: What that is so ridiculous.
• 3:21
  Ray Comfort: Most people say about four miles.
• 3:22
  Ray Comfort: I don't want to lie 3.71.
• 3:25
  Ray Comfort: I don't want to lie, and how long did it take?
• 3:28
  Emeal Zwayne: I usually do say almost four, but we do about an hour and 10 minutes.
• 3:33
  Emeal Zwayne: But what's crazy is we've been doing those.
• 3:35
  Emeal Zwayne: Yesterday I didn't do it, but I was at Huntington and I was early, so I'm like I'm just going to walk to the end of the pier and back.
• 3:42
  Ray Comfort: You could speed those walks up by going in your car.
• 3:44
  Emeal Zwayne: Can you imagine Just going up and just doing it?
• 3:49
  Emeal Zwayne: But I was telling Rachel last night it was probably about, you know, maybe about three quarters of a mile, but it felt like nothing because we've been doing all that walking.
• 3:57
  Emeal Zwayne: It was really good.
• 3:59
  Oscar Navarro: Wait, what happened to the?
• 3:59
  Emeal Zwayne: skunk?
• 4:00
  Emeal Zwayne: I don't know.
• 4:02
  Ray Comfort: There was no point.
• 4:04
  Emeal Zwayne: The skunk stunk.
• 4:05
  Emeal Zwayne: That's about all I got to say about it.
• 4:08
  Ray Comfort: Did it stink?
• 4:08
  Emeal Zwayne: No, no, but it was just like cruising down the sidewalk in broad daylight.
• 4:11
  Emeal Zwayne: You don't normally see that with skunks.
• 4:13
  Ray Comfort: Yeah.
• 4:14
  Emeal Zwayne: Okay, skunk trivia.
• 4:15
  Emeal Zwayne: How far can a skunk spray?
• 4:18
  Mark Spence: be detected.
• 4:21
  Oscar Navarro: How far away can the odor can be detected?
• 4:22
  Oscar Navarro: I can't see it.
• 4:23
  Oscar Navarro: I want to, but I can't.
• 4:24
  Ray Comfort: I'm guessing, no, how far can it hit?
• 4:27
  Ray Comfort: Or how far away?
• 4:28
  Ray Comfort: How far away can?
• 4:29
  Emeal Zwayne: you smell it.
• 4:29
  Ray Comfort: Well, you've got on the freeway.
• 4:31
  Ray Comfort: You can smell it from a mile away if you run over Mile and a half.
• 4:34
  Oscar Navarro: I'm going to guess a mile and a half.
• 4:35
  Emeal Zwayne: Mile and a half.
• 4:37
  Mark Spence: When I ran over that skunk, it left a smell on my car for a very long time dunk and it got sprayed.
• 4:46
  Emeal Zwayne: Would the word pungent be applicable to this it?
• 4:48
  Ray Comfort: totally steamrolled what I just said.
• 4:51
  Ray Comfort: I don't care, his dog got skunked Really, lady.
• 4:56
  Ray Comfort: Yeah, a lady had the smell out of it.
• 4:58
  Mark Spence: That'd be a good name.
• 4:59
  Mark Spence: I was just going to say, because you asked the question, how far can they spray?
• 5:03
  Mark Spence: I was thinking 10 feet, 20 feet, Mark, stop looking stuff up.
• 5:10
  Emeal Zwayne: The thing is is he tries to look innocent?
• 5:14
  Ray Comfort: It's all over his face Like a guilty little boy.
• 5:18
  Ray Comfort: Nostrils flare.
• 5:19
  Emeal Zwayne: Yeah, okay.
• 5:21
  Emeal Zwayne: What are some things that a skunk might do before it sprays?
• 5:31
  Oscar Navarro: Take a nap.
• 5:31
  Emeal Zwayne: Put his tail up, turn his face.
• 5:33
  Emeal Zwayne: They might hiss growl, stamp their feet, walk backwards and raise their tail over their heads.
• 5:39
  Emeal Zwayne: Have you seen them do that?
• 5:40
  Emeal Zwayne: They're going too.
• 5:41
  Ray Comfort: Or they could just say let us spray, I can't let us spray the Christian ones A spiritual skunk.
• 5:48
  Emeal Zwayne: Yeah, 10 feet away.
• 5:49
  Emeal Zwayne: You're right, Mark.
• 5:50
  Emeal Zwayne: That's how far away they can and that's with accuracy.
• 5:53
  Emeal Zwayne: They could hit about 20 feet away, but with accuracy, Unlike your football throw two episodes ago.
• 5:57
  Emeal Zwayne: Oh yeah.
• 5:59
  Oscar Navarro: You guys heard the one about the skunk?
• 6:00
  Ray Comfort: Never mind, it stinks.
• 6:04
  Emeal Zwayne: And what do some skunks mainly eat?
• 6:06
  Emeal Zwayne: Do you guys know, do you guys?
• 6:08
  Ray Comfort: know, do you guys know?
• 6:09
  Emeal Zwayne: Skunk food.
• 6:09
  Emeal Zwayne: Bees Like bugs Bees, bees yeah, they eat bees.
• 6:12
  Emeal Zwayne: Yeah, takes them 10 to 12 days to replenish their stink.
• 6:16
  Mark Spence: They eat the garbage at our house.
• 6:18
  Mark Spence: I can usually do it.
• 6:18
  Mark Spence: Oh, seriously yeah.
• 6:19
  Emeal Zwayne: Yeah.
• 6:20
  Mark Spence: I miss.
• 6:20
  Emeal Zwayne: Pepe Le Pew man.
• 6:29
  Oscar Navarro: That was one of the best.
• 6:30
  Oscar Navarro: Talking about facing a skunk and what would you?
• 6:31
  Ray Comfort: do I have this wristband that says uh?
• 6:32
  Oscar Navarro: what would ray do?
• 6:33
  Oscar Navarro: And I just look at that and then do the opposite.
• 6:34
  Mark Spence: I like that.
• 6:34
  Mark Spence: That's what we would hurt somebody.
• 6:36
  Emeal Zwayne: That's what we call wisdom.
• 6:37
  Emeal Zwayne: All right, friends, a cool, classy comment.
• 6:41
  Ray Comfort: This is from lisa spike I learned something today what there's not much trivia about skunk.
• 6:48
  Emeal Zwayne: I know I was like look at all this stuff up, there's not much.
• 6:51
  Emeal Zwayne: All right, here's from Lisa Spike.
• 6:54
  Emeal Zwayne: Hi guys, several months ago I heard Ray Comfort speak on another radio show and I really got a lot out of it.
• 7:00
  Emeal Zwayne: The host promoted his podcast, so I listened to a recent episode the next day while getting ready for work.
• 7:06
  Emeal Zwayne: I liked it so much I went back to episode one and have been listening to them all in order.
• 7:18
  Emeal Zwayne: I'm now on 192 as this has become my daily routine.
• 7:20
  Emeal Zwayne: I can't express how much you have impacted my walk with Jesus.
• 7:21
  Emeal Zwayne: You've taught me things I didn't know and you have convicted me in areas I didn't know I needed conviction.
• 7:25
  Emeal Zwayne: Most importantly, you've convinced me that I need to start sharing the gospel.
• 7:29
  Emeal Zwayne: Yes, this is a weak area for me and I feel compelled that this is something that must change.
• 7:35
  Emeal Zwayne: I'm so encouraged by your stories of evangelizing.
• 7:38
  Emeal Zwayne: It makes me less fearful.
• 7:40
  Emeal Zwayne: Your obvious intense love and devotion for the Lord is inspiring.
• 7:44
  Emeal Zwayne: Thank you for all you do.
• 7:45
  Emeal Zwayne: I'll be sad once I catch up and can only listen a couple of times a week.
• 7:51
  Emeal Zwayne: With much gratitude, lisa, ps, mark, we are kindred spirits.
• 7:56
  Emeal Zwayne: I can't even say or type the word peas without literally physically gagging, and she put P-E and then asterisk, or at sign that's funny?
• 8:06
  Mark Spence: Oh I hate it.
• 8:06
  Mark Spence: Yeah, so wow, Lisa, he doesn.
• 8:07
  Mark Spence: That's funny, oh I hate it.
• 8:09
  Mark Spence: Yeah, so wow, Lisa you don't like peas, oh, I hate it.
• 8:12
  Mark Spence: And carrots, I will be offended if you ever offer me peas, well, what?
• 8:14
  Ray Comfort: about peas straight from the garden, raw from the pod.
• 8:17
  Ray Comfort: They're different than cooked peas.
• 8:18
  Ray Comfort: Yeah, that might be okay.
• 8:20
  Mark Spence: You can do like edamame.
• 8:21
  Emeal Zwayne: Mark, Can you do like edamame?
• 8:31
  Mark Spence: it's really good protein, b protein they make it out of peas.
• 8:32
  Mark Spence: Really, yeah, it's really good for you.
• 8:33
  Emeal Zwayne: Yeah, I know it's first I've heard about it.
• 8:34
  Emeal Zwayne: How about peas and cilantro mixed together?
• 8:35
  Mark Spence: and I like cilantro dine even jike.
• 8:39
  Emeal Zwayne: All right, friends.
• 8:40
  Emeal Zwayne: By the way, a shout out, shout out.
• 8:42
  Emeal Zwayne: Shout out to our dear friend, uh, brandon maya, who listens the time.
• 8:50
  Emeal Zwayne: You guys remember our brother Brandon.
• 8:51
  Emeal Zwayne: We met up with him in Texas, good friend of yours.
• 8:53
  Emeal Zwayne: He's wheelchair-bound but loves the Lord, loves the lost.
• 8:58
  Emeal Zwayne: And, brandon, thank you for listening.
• 9:00
  Emeal Zwayne: Brother, we'll never forget the time that we had with you.
• 9:04
  Emeal Zwayne: It was really, really precious and you're a dear friend of ours.
• 9:07
  Ray Comfort: Amen, Love you brother.
• 9:07
  Ray Comfort: He's got two great dogs, yeah that's right.
• 9:10
  Emeal Zwayne: Oh, really, really precious, you're a dear friend of ours he's got two great dogs, that's right.
• 9:14
  Mark Spence: Oh, he has two now, hi.
• 9:14
  Mark Spence: What are the?
• 9:15
  Ray Comfort: names.
• 9:15
  Ray Comfort: One's called Ray C.
• 9:16
  Ray Comfort: I don't know the name of the other one.
• 9:17
  Emeal Zwayne: Why is it called Ray C?
• 9:20
  Ray Comfort: He named it after me.
• 9:21
  Ray Comfort: I got the dog for him, your name is Ray C.
• 9:26
  Oscar Navarro: Yeah, it is Ray C I told his parents.
• 9:27
  Ray Comfort: I said Brennan got a dog because he's paralyzed, and I said that'll change his life Everyone needs a dog and it really did.
• 9:34
  Emeal Zwayne: Yeah, he's a dear brother man.
• 9:36
  Emeal Zwayne: What an example of pressing on in much difficult circumstances.
• 9:39
  Emeal Zwayne: He named the dog after X, with the same height.
• 9:40
  Emeal Zwayne: It's a great name, and there goes Oscar's job.
• 9:44
  Emeal Zwayne: All right friends, all right friends time for a radically revolutionary resource.
• 9:49
  Emeal Zwayne: This podcast is brought to you by the Ten Commandments scroll pen Ray, one of my favorites.
• 9:56
  Emeal Zwayne: In fact, we just gave hundreds away to our church's VBS Kindred Community.
• 10:03
  Oscar Navarro: Church Come check us out friends.
• 10:05
  Emeal Zwayne: Kindred Community Church at kindredorg, Kindredchurchorg.
• 10:09
  Emeal Zwayne: Oh sorry, I only go there In the kindredorg, kindredchurchorg.
• 10:11
  Emeal Zwayne: Oh sorry, I only go there in the wrong direction.
• 10:12
  Emeal Zwayne: Yeah, check it out.
• 10:13
  Emeal Zwayne: But the 10 commandments scroll pen is phenomenal because it's got a tract and it retracts.
• 10:17
  Ray Comfort: Hey, tract, retract is that the one when they can memorize the 10 commandments?
• 10:22
  Ray Comfort: And yes, for life or two minutes for life.
• 10:24
  Emeal Zwayne: Oh, it is phenomenal.
• 10:26
  Emeal Zwayne: It's really cool.
• 10:26
  Emeal Zwayne: They're great for kids, they're made for kids.
• 10:33
  Ray Comfort: Great gift and it pulls out, but then it retracts back in into the pen, and there's also the boomerang pen.
• 10:37
  Ray Comfort: Yeah, Written on there it says what Thou shalt, not steal Ray why is it called a boomerang pen?
• 10:42
  Ray Comfort: Because it always comes back.
• 10:43
  Ray Comfort: Because it gets returned when people's conscience gets broken.
• 10:46
  Ray Comfort: You let people steal them so they come under conviction.
• 10:49
  Mark Spence: It's great if you're a server, like if you're a waiter, and you drop off the bill and they have to sign their name and it says thou shalt not steal right on that Boy that one has lived.
• 10:58
  Emeal Zwayne: We've had some things that have died, that has lived on.
• 11:00
  Emeal Zwayne: I love that one, the conscience boomerang pin.
• 11:03
  Emeal Zwayne: Yeah, all right, and don't forget the Living Waters mug from which you can chug and the evidence study Bible all at livingwatercom.
• 11:12
  Emeal Zwayne: All right, friends Today.
• 11:15
  Emeal Zwayne: Last time I got it wrong.
• 11:19
  Ray Comfort: I thought we were doing this one last time.
• 11:20
  Emeal Zwayne: You get it wrong most days, but this time we're doing this one, which is the sovereignty of God.
• 11:26
  Emeal Zwayne: And boy, if ever a topic deserves a deep voice, it's that one.
• 11:30
  Emeal Zwayne: John Piper said when we say God is sovereign, we mean he is powerful and authoritative to the extent of being able to override all other powers and authorities.
• 11:43
  Emeal Zwayne: John M Frame said the sovereignty of God is the fact that he is the Lord over creation.
• 11:48
  Emeal Zwayne: As sovereign, he exercises his rule.
• 11:51
  Emeal Zwayne: This rule is exercised through God's authority as king, his control over all things and his presence with his covenantal people and throughout his creation.
• 12:03
  Emeal Zwayne: Wow, great definitions, guys.
• 12:04
  Emeal Zwayne: When someone says the sovereignty of God, I think immediately it can be translated into this like kind of highbrow doctrine.
• 12:11
  Emeal Zwayne: Oh, you know, man, the sovereignty of God?
• 12:13
  Emeal Zwayne: But to me it is my stability.
• 12:17
  Emeal Zwayne: Yeah, it is the foundation for why I maintain my sanity as a Christian.
• 12:24
  Emeal Zwayne: Yeah, ray, how consoling is the sovereignty of God.
• 12:28
  Ray Comfort: Well, it means, no matter what happens to you, you know God's in control, he's the sovereign.
• 12:32
  Ray Comfort: I don't blink, or a dog doesn't blink, without God's permission.
• 12:36
  Ray Comfort: And so because he's in control and because he says all things are working together for my good, even if I find myself in a lion's den, I can rejoice.
• 12:46
  Ray Comfort: I can go out and floss the teeth of the lions, because God's in total control.
• 12:50
  Mark Spence: Spurgeon said it like this when you go through a trial, the sovereignty of God is the pillow upon which you lay your head.
• 12:58
  Ray Comfort: You know, I'd like to commend that guy Spurgeon.
• 13:02
  Mark Spence: Him and his high-pitched voice.
• 13:05
  Emeal Zwayne: Talk about, though he's dead, yet he still speaks.
• 13:09
  Emeal Zwayne: I feel like Spurgeon's still alive, because you hear him quoted so often.
• 13:12
  Emeal Zwayne: And what he says is so relevant, even though it was 150 years or whatever ago.
• 13:17
  Emeal Zwayne: It's still relevant because he spoke to the common man.
• 13:21
  Emeal Zwayne: I was thinking about the sovereignty of God.
• 13:24
  Emeal Zwayne: Yesterday, I was thinking about something that I'm desiring would happen.
• 13:28
  Emeal Zwayne: It's a potentially really good opportunity, but you didn't know the job.
• 13:34
  Ray Comfort: What's that?
• 13:35
  Emeal Zwayne: Job opportunity.
• 13:37
  Oscar Navarro: You didn't know about that right.
• 13:40
  Emeal Zwayne: Yeah, I'm going to work for this new ministry called Alive Liquid.
• 13:44
  Ray Comfort: You've never heard of it.
• 13:45
  Ray Comfort: You would be easy to replace because there's so many people just like you.
• 13:50
  Emeal Zwayne: Lots of lunatics out there.
• 13:51
  Emeal Zwayne: But I was just thinking I was premeditating Murder.
• 13:57
  Emeal Zwayne: I have to work with these guys.
• 14:03
  Emeal Zwayne: I was premeditating my rejoicing at the thought of this not working out.
• 14:12
  Ray Comfort: What not working out?
• 14:13
  Ray Comfort: Oh, the opportunity you're talking about, yeah, about it not working out.
• 14:16
  Emeal Zwayne: I was premeditating my rejoicing, and the only reason I was able to do that is because of my knowledge of the sovereignty of God.
• 14:23
  Ray Comfort: Because you were like Daniel, who's thinking, okay, if I get eaten by these lions, I'm going to rejoice.
• 14:28
  Emeal Zwayne: Yeah, it's just like you know, God is in control.
• 14:31
  Emeal Zwayne: Yeah, I've prayed that this would happen.
• 14:33
  Emeal Zwayne: If it doesn't happen, it's exactly what I want.
• 14:39
  Ray Comfort: Because if it doesn't happen, god didn't want it to happen.
• 14:41
  Ray Comfort: Remember the confession of Shadrach, meshach and Abednego.
• 14:42
  Ray Comfort: This is if it doesn't, he's in control.
• 14:45
  Emeal Zwayne: Yeah, doesn't?
• 14:46
  Emeal Zwayne: He's in control.
• 14:46
  Emeal Zwayne: Yeah, our God, whom we serve, is able to deliver us, and if not, let it be known to you.
• 14:50
  Emeal Zwayne: We still won't.
• 14:51
  Ray Comfort: Yeah, that's what I was gonna say, yeah that?
• 15:00
  Emeal Zwayne: That yeah.
• 15:00
  Emeal Zwayne: But Mark right, he's sovereign, he's in control.
• 15:02
  Mark Spence: Yes, he rules and reigns, and we are His and he is ours.
• 15:03
  Mark Spence: Yeah, he is the potter, we are the clay.
• 15:05
  Mark Spence: Several years ago I was struggling with something that was out of my control and a pastor friend of mine came to me and he said, mark, it would do you well to go do a word study on sovereignty.
• 15:18
  Mark Spence: And I think the best definition I ever came across was that God does whatever he wants, whenever he wants, to whomever he wants.
• 15:24
  Mark Spence: However he wants, he answers to no one and he doesn't care what you think about it, for God is in heaven and he does what he pleases.
• 15:31
  Mark Spence: Psalm 135, verse 6.
• 15:33
  Mark Spence: And 115, verse 3.
• 15:35
  Mark Spence: The Lord does whatever pleases him in the heavens and on the earth and in the seas and all their depths.
• 15:44
  Mark Spence: It's been said, you cannot subpoena God.
• 15:46
  Mark Spence: He does not answer to you.
• 15:48
  Mark Spence: How dare you incite God?
• 15:50
  Mark Spence: Right, he's in control of all things, he knows all things.
• 15:55
  Mark Spence: Sproul worded it like this that there's not one maverick molecule in the universe that he's not aware of.
• 16:01
  Mark Spence: Right, that things are running its course as he sees fit.
• 16:05
  Mark Spence: Does not need your wisdom, does not need your counsel.
• 16:08
  Mark Spence: If he needed counsel, you would not know about it.
• 16:11
  Mark Spence: God is in heaven and he is ruling and reigning, with scepter in one hand, a gavel in the next, and when that gavel comes down, the court is dismissed, the jury can go home.
• 16:22
  Mark Spence: He will always have the final word, as he is the word incarnate.
• 16:27
  Emeal Zwayne: Amen.
• 16:28
  Emeal Zwayne: You know, Oscar, I was thinking the other day about nuclear explosions.
• 16:32
  Emeal Zwayne: I was too.
• 16:33
  Mark Spence: Seriously, yeah, I was Googling it.
• 16:35
  Mark Spence: Or I was on Chet Chibutiti asking all about it, yeah, and I was thinking about.
• 16:38
  Ray Comfort: You know something we don't.
• 16:41
  Emeal Zwayne: And I was thinking about how Wait was that your Arabic cry for?
• 16:45
  Mark Spence: war yeah.
• 16:46
  Emeal Zwayne: No that would be oh, don't even do that.
• 16:49
  Emeal Zwayne: That's my raid.
• 16:52
  Ray Comfort: My raid, annoying it is.
• 16:54
  Emeal Zwayne: Yeah, it does annoy me.
• 16:55
  Emeal Zwayne: Anyway, back to nuclear bombs, I was thinking about how massive they are, like I mean, you know they can kill hundreds of thousands of people.
• 17:05
  Emeal Zwayne: We remember Hiroshima, nagasaki, right, and yet you think about what those would be like from space.
• 17:12
  Emeal Zwayne: You don't even hear it, you just see this little.
• 17:14
  Emeal Zwayne: You might see a little like, maybe a little flash, possibly from outer space, right, but you think of how terrified we as people would be to stand before that.
• 17:22
  Emeal Zwayne: And then you can then begin to grasp, right, like when you think of the omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, infinite, all-powerful God of the universe, and then you think of Moses and God's like no, no, you cannot see my glory you don't understand.
• 17:40
  Emeal Zwayne: Like, take nuclear bombs and multiply them by 999 quadrillion times, 999 quadrillion quadrillion, you can't even get close to understanding the power of God.
• 17:50
  Ray Comfort: And that God is sovereign.
• 17:51
  Ray Comfort: Doesn't that portion of scripture thrill you?
• 17:53
  Ray Comfort: I love it Just absolutely magnificent.
• 17:56
  Mark Spence: Was it Exodus somewhere?
• 17:57
  Mark Spence: Exodus, chapter 1.
• 17:59
  Mark Spence: Yeah, yeah.
• 18:03
  Ray Comfort: You know what's interesting too.
• 18:04
  Ray Comfort: It's frustrating for people who really did want the reference.
• 18:06
  Ray Comfort: Honestly, I'll pull it up, thanks.
• 18:08
  Oscar Navarro: Mark, I think I love that and one of the things that's interesting about the sovereignty of God.
• 18:13
  Oscar Navarro: I love the way Edmund Clowney talks about it and he makes the point that often what happens with systematic theology which is a good thing because it helps us understand in a systematic way the truths found in Scripture but often what he talks about is the systematic theology, which is a good thing because it helps us understand in a systematic way the truths found in scripture, but often what he talks about is the systematic theology.
• 18:33
  Oscar Navarro: One of the challenges if that's the only kind of theological books that you read or commentaries you read is that it tends to systematize the things we talk about with God.
• 18:42
  Oscar Navarro: And so when we talk about sovereignty, we think about the correlations of foreknowledge, predestination, of authority, and there is a correlation to those things, but there's also a distinction.
• 18:54
  Oscar Navarro: The sovereignty of God has a distinction from those things, and what Clowney helps us do is see the sovereignty of God in the narrative of scripture, and of course, the narrative, the unfolding narrative of scripture is God reconciling the world to himself, and so the picture that he paints is that God is this sovereign king, the king over the cosmos, which we see in all, throughout the scriptures and the narrative, the story is that we are the rebels who have rebelled against a good king.
• 19:34
  Oscar Navarro: And you think about that?
• 19:35
  Oscar Navarro: Like often, our disposition to the idea of God being sovereign, to the God being Lord of our lives, is that we have this one of two things we either have this idea of a king who's a megalomaniac who doesn't deserve to be king, have this idea of a king who's a megalomaniac who doesn't deserve to be king, or we have this hyper autonomous, libertarian view of ourselves which is I need no king of my life, I am the king of my life.
• 19:59
  Oscar Navarro: And I love you know, when I read through, I love the Lord of the Rings and I love the story of Aragon, because you meet Aragon and you know that he's supposed to be king, but he's not yet king.
• 20:11
  Oscar Navarro: And you watch Aragon's character develop through the story.
• 20:16
  Oscar Navarro: You watch him hold to oaths at great cost.
• 20:19
  Oscar Navarro: You watch him fight for those who can't fight for themselves.
• 20:22
  Oscar Navarro: You watch his character develop so that by the end of the book, when he is given the kingship, everybody's celebrating it because they know he is the one who's supposed to be king, not only because it's his kingdom, but they know his character as right and true, and you see this in Star Wars, when Princess Leia, at the end of A New Hope, becomes the queen.
• 20:48
  Oscar Navarro: Again we celebrate when we know the character is right.
• 20:53
  Oscar Navarro: And that's the story of the scriptures is that God is king of the cosmos and his character is true.
• 21:02
  Oscar Navarro: And our rub, if there's a rub, our frustration, our discomfort, is coming to realize that we are not the king of the story, that we're not the heroes, we're the rebels, we're the ones who rebel against the good king.
• 21:19
  Oscar Navarro: And the beauty, of course, of the gospel is that same king, that sovereign king, lays down his crown so that he can seek after a rebel people and draw them back to himself.
• 21:34
  Oscar Navarro: That is the beauty of the sovereignty of God.
• 21:38
  Emeal Zwayne: Wow, that's so well put, ray.
• 21:41
  Emeal Zwayne: Wouldn't you say that maybe two of the most terrifying words combined together are sovereignty and wickedness?
• 21:48
  Emeal Zwayne: Because if someone is, sovereign and all-powerful and wicked.
• 21:54
  Emeal Zwayne: That's a terrifying thing.
• 21:56
  Ray Comfort: That's the lesson we see from Exodus 33, verse 18.
• 21:59
  Ray Comfort: That's where Moses said let me see your glory.
• 22:02
  Ray Comfort: And God says you can't see me and live, but I'll let my goodness pass you by.
• 22:06
  Ray Comfort: And if Moses had stood in the goodness of God, god would kill him because of his goodness because you cannot separate goodness from justice and so God's fury would have spilled upon him and it doesn't spill upon us because of his mercy.
• 22:19
  Ray Comfort: Talking about God's sovereignty, and how can it help us as Christians?
• 22:23
  Ray Comfort: Life is full of suffering and I read this recently and it broke my heart.
• 22:28
  Ray Comfort: I sent it to you, Izzy, and it did the same with you.
• 22:31
  Ray Comfort: A New Jersey pastor's family were on vacation in Maine.
• 22:34
  Ray Comfort: It ended in tragedy when an incident or an accident involving a badminton racket resulted in the death of their six-year-old daughter, lucy Morgan.
• 22:42
  Ray Comfort: The incident involved the young girl being fatally struck by a dislodged piece of racket while she was not actively playing.
• 22:49
  Ray Comfort: So she's watching racquetball.
• 22:51
  Ray Comfort: A racket breaks, a piece flies over to her, hits her in the head and kills her.
• 22:55
  Ray Comfort: The only thing you can do I mean, the chances of that happening are like one in a million, seriously, but it did.
• 23:01
  Ray Comfort: So the pastor's going to have to say God's sovereign.
• 23:03
  Ray Comfort: He allowed that to happen for his purposes.
• 23:06
  Ray Comfort: Horrific though it is and if you could listen to my prayer list at night, it's absolutely depressing I'm praying for all these friends of mine.
• 23:13
  Ray Comfort: I've got a friend in Hawaii, danny.
• 23:16
  Ray Comfort: He got cancer, but he's also got Parkinson's disease at the same time.
• 23:20
  Ray Comfort: How can you reconcile that without calling on the sovereignty of God?
• 23:24
  Ray Comfort: God has allowed it for a reason we just don't know why.
• 23:27
  Ray Comfort: Why did he rescue Peter from jail when he was going to be executed and let James get executed?
• 23:33
  Ray Comfort: Why?
• 23:34
  Ray Comfort: Well, all these questions that we wrestle with can be summed up with God's in control.
• 23:39
  Ray Comfort: I trust him.
• 23:41
  Emeal Zwayne: Amen.
• 23:41
  Emeal Zwayne: I trust him with my whole heart and, like we were talking about, we also trust his character.
• 23:45
  Emeal Zwayne: You know, alexander Carson said God's sovereignty is always to his people, in wisdom and in love.
• 23:51
  Emeal Zwayne: This is the difference between sovereignty in God and sovereignty in man.
• 23:55
  Emeal Zwayne: We dread the sovereignty of man because we have no security of its being exercised in mercy or even justice.
• 24:01
  Emeal Zwayne: We rejoice in the sovereignty of God because we are sure it is always exercised for the good of his people.
• 24:08
  Emeal Zwayne: And that's our consolation, like, yeah, god is sovereign, he's all powerful, he does what he wants, but what he wants to do is righteousness.
• 24:17
  Emeal Zwayne: And even though we don't understand why this happened or that happened, we understand that he is working within a fallen, broken world, but it's always for his glory and for his good.
• 24:30
  Mark Spence: Let me commend a book to anybody who wants to dive deeper into this.
• 24:33
  Mark Spence: My wife is currently reading a book by Jerry Bridges called Trusting God.
• 24:37
  Mark Spence: It's also a devotional that you can go through, a 30-day devotional that we're reading off and on together.
• 24:45
  Mark Spence: But her more being consistent, he said confidence in the sovereignty of God and all that affects us is crucial to our trusting him.
• 24:53
  Mark Spence: If there is a single event in all of the universe that can occur outside of God's sovereign control, then we cannot trust him.
• 25:00
  Mark Spence: His love may be infinite, but if his power is limited and his purpose can be thwarted, then we can't trust him.
• 25:07
  Mark Spence: That's so good, so good.
• 25:11
  Ray Comfort: Yeah, what's the alternative to going through suffering and not trusting God?
• 25:15
  Mark Spence: There's no alternative You're working within yourself, trying to get something done, and you're always gonna come up short.
• 25:22
  Ray Comfort: Yeah, it's a dead end and it can only end in bitterness.
• 25:25
  Emeal Zwayne: That's a good point, ray, because you're still going through the suffering, right?
• 25:28
  Emeal Zwayne: I mean, the unbeliever and the believer are both going through difficult things in life, but it's like okay.
• 25:33
  Emeal Zwayne: It's like sometimes I tell my kids when they're young like, okay, look, you have to do this, you're going to do this.
• 25:40
  Emeal Zwayne: You might as well enjoy it, you know, because you know you're going to have to finish your schoolwork.
• 25:45
  Emeal Zwayne: You're going to.
• 25:46
  Emeal Zwayne: You know you're going to have to do the chore.
• 25:47
  Emeal Zwayne: You have to do that.
• 25:48
  Emeal Zwayne: You don't like that you're grumbling about.
• 25:49
  Emeal Zwayne: You might as well enjoy it, because it's got to be done and you're going to go through suffering.
• 25:53
  Emeal Zwayne: You can either be.
• 25:54
  Emeal Zwayne: I love the saying that says you can either get better or better.
• 25:57
  Mark Spence: Yeah, the French poet Baudelaire.
• 25:59
  Mark Spence: He said how can you talk about God being loving as I kneel at the bed of my dying child?
• 26:03
  Mark Spence: John Lennox came along and he said hey, I'm just curious.
• 26:06
  Mark Spence: What exactly does the great French poet Baudelaire say to his dying daughter, as an atheist, as she passes from time on into eternity?
• 26:16
  Mark Spence: Do you look at her and say tough luck, babe.
• 26:19
  Mark Spence: That's the way the ball bounces, because that's all you've got as an atheist?
• 26:25
  Mark Spence: Listen, we are both going to go through trials, but the one who goes through the trial with the Lord is surrounded, because the angel of the Lord encamps around those who fears him and sings songs of deliverance.
• 26:37
  Mark Spence: Yeah, so I trust to go hand in hand through a trial that my God is in control of.
• 26:43
  Oscar Navarro: What do I say to the father standing at the bedside of their dying child?
• 26:49
  Oscar Navarro: The Lord knows what it's like to lose a child.
• 26:53
  Oscar Navarro: That's right, and he lost it so that one day all pain and suffering would come to an end.
• 26:57
  Oscar Navarro: That's right, and you can be a part of that as long as you repent and believe.
• 27:00
  Oscar Navarro: That's what you say to someone.
• 27:01
  Mark Spence: And that's exactly Two days ago, I received a message on one of my posts from a lady who said where was God when my child died?
• 27:11
  Mark Spence: Answer me that.
• 27:12
  Mark Spence: And I said he was at the same place when his son died at the hands of cruel people.
• 27:17
  Mark Spence: Him being supremely innocent, suffered at the hands of very cruel people.
• 27:23
  Emeal Zwayne: And you know what man it gives me the chills when I think about it.
• 27:25
  Emeal Zwayne: You know, the thing that takes it to just a whole other level was when you think, first of all, god could have saved his son and that that son who died was totally innocent, perfect God, he wasn't marred by the sinful nature because he'd never sinned, and so you think about that.
• 27:51
  Emeal Zwayne: He willingly gave his son, who willingly gave his life in order to save us, and not just that, his enemies for his enemies.
• 28:00
  Emeal Zwayne: You know, ray, there are things that happen in this world that just don't make sense.
• 28:07
  Emeal Zwayne: I mean, you think about Acts 4, 27 to 28.
• 28:11
  Emeal Zwayne: This is never going to stop, is it Right?
• 28:16
  Emeal Zwayne: Like they know what the reference is talking about?
• 28:19
  Emeal Zwayne: For truly against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the people of Israel, were gathered together to do whatever your hand and your purpose determined before to be done.
• 28:35
  Ray Comfort: Isn't that?
• 28:35
  Emeal Zwayne: wonderful.
• 28:36
  Emeal Zwayne: It's like I mean, they're thinking look what we're doing.
• 28:39
  Emeal Zwayne: And yet God was sovereignly in control.
• 28:41
  Ray Comfort: He had hold of the strings of the puppets.
• 28:43
  Ray Comfort: His will was being done.
• 28:45
  Ray Comfort: Yeah, that's an offense to the proud human mind, unregenerate mind.
• 28:50
  Ray Comfort: How could God infringe upon my free will?
• 28:53
  Ray Comfort: He does what he wants.
• 28:55
  Emeal Zwayne: Yeah, oscar, isaiah 14, 26 to 27.
• 28:58
  Emeal Zwayne: This is the purpose that is purposed against the whole earth, and this is the hand that is stretched out over all the nations, for the Lord of hosts has purposed and who will annul it?
• 29:08
  Emeal Zwayne: His hand is stretched out and who will turn it back?
• 29:11
  Emeal Zwayne: I love that rhetorical question Like, yeah, nobody, you know.
• 29:17
  Emeal Zwayne: And I mean you know, when I was a kid, I remember being in high school and I was going to get beat up by these guys that I mouthed off to in the summer.
• 29:26
  Emeal Zwayne: They were in kindergarten.
• 29:27
  Emeal Zwayne: I was going in as a freshman.
• 29:30
  Emeal Zwayne: These guys were like, I think, juniors or something, and they're like you wait till you get to high school, you know, at the end of the summer.
• 29:36
  Emeal Zwayne: And so I went to high school, you know.
• 29:39
  Emeal Zwayne: But I was so excited and so at peace and so free because we got this new neighbor, who was a friend of our family, who was going to high school with me, whose name was George, who was this Lebanese guy who was huge One of us I'm fucking ripped One of us.
• 29:54
  Emeal Zwayne: And George said don't worry, I take care of everything for you, I make problem go bye-bye.
• 30:01
  Emeal Zwayne: And it did.
• 30:02
  Emeal Zwayne: I remember the one main guy who was going to get me.
• 30:04
  Emeal Zwayne: He's like oh no, no, he's great, everything's fine.
• 30:06
  Emeal Zwayne: We love him.
• 30:11
  Emeal Zwayne: Yeah, but like multiply that right In terms of our God doing what he wants, and and again.
• 30:13
  Emeal Zwayne: Like I said, if God is for us, who can be?
• 30:14
  Oscar Navarro: against us?
• 30:15
  Oscar Navarro: Yes, well, that's.
• 30:16
  Oscar Navarro: That brings a really good question to the Christian and to everybody really, which is what area of your life right now is God not king?
• 30:25
  Oscar Navarro: What area of your life are you king of your own life?
• 30:28
  Oscar Navarro: And you used a verse where it's like his sovereign hand is holding things together.
• 30:33
  Oscar Navarro: That's exactly right.
• 30:33
  Oscar Navarro: Jesus holds the cosmos together.
• 30:37
  Oscar Navarro: Under the kingship of Christ, the cosmos is being held together, and what the scriptures explain about our lives is that we choose to take areas or our whole lives into our own kingships, and what we see in Romans 1, what happens is our lives begin to unravel, and it warns us that one day, if we don't repent and come under the Lordship of Jesus Christ, that God is going to hand us over to our desires, that one day we will completely unravel.
• 31:09
  Oscar Navarro: And I think about that.
• 31:12
  Oscar Navarro: Well, bertrand Russell and David Hume both of them, one of them agnostic, the other one an atheist but both of them were perplexed at the orderliness of the universe, and what I mean by that is they wondered why doesn't the universe unravel?
• 31:28
  Oscar Navarro: Why is it always the same?
• 31:30
  Oscar Navarro: Why does water always freeze at 32 degrees and boil at 212?
• 31:35
  Oscar Navarro: They recognized that there was a uniformity to nature, that the future will be like the past, over and over and over again.
• 31:42
  Oscar Navarro: It's what the basis of scientific study is is that it stays the same.
• 31:47
  Oscar Navarro: And to remove yourself from the Lordship of Christ is to remove yourself from uniformity.
• 31:55
  Oscar Navarro: I heard someone explain it like this you know fish at the bottom of the sea.
• 32:00
  Oscar Navarro: They're under immense pressure because of all of the water we're talking about, like miles below the sea.
• 32:07
  Oscar Navarro: They're under immense pressure and in that pressure they thrive.
• 32:12
  Oscar Navarro: But you know what happens when you take that fish and you bring them to the top of the ocean Sushi.
• 32:17
  Ray Comfort: They literally explode.
• 32:21
  Oscar Navarro: They literally explode, they unravel, they're blown apart because they can't be held together, because they don't have the immense pressure they were designed to be under.
• 32:31
  Ray Comfort: You see your life and that's what happens to humans when we go down to their bottom and they explode.
• 32:35
  Oscar Navarro: Sure, but that's also true.
• 32:36
  Oscar Navarro: Under the Lordship of Christ, you are held together, and when you try to bring yourself under your own Lordship Romans 1, you will be blown apart, you will unravel.
• 32:47
  Oscar Navarro: That is the beauty of the Lordship of Christ.
• 32:49
  Oscar Navarro: Blown apart, you will unravel.
• 32:51
  Ray Comfort: That is the beauty of the Lordship of Christ that you were designed for it Well, and you made it through the analogy, without us destroying it.
• 32:58
  Emeal Zwayne: It was close, it was close.
• 33:00
  Ray Comfort: I think of the sovereignty of God in Isaiah 40, verse 15.
• 33:03
  Ray Comfort: All the nations are a drop in a bucket to God, and someone once said it's a bucket that's just been emptied out.
• 33:10
  Ray Comfort: Wow, yeah, like the fine dust of the scales.
• 33:13
  Emeal Zwayne: This is all the nations?
• 33:15
  Ray Comfort: Yeah, the fine dust and the scales, absolutely nothing.
• 33:18
  Emeal Zwayne: Gone.
• 33:19
  Emeal Zwayne: Oh, man Uses the earth as his footstool.
• 33:22
  Emeal Zwayne: Right, that's a lovely analogy.
• 33:26
  Ray Comfort: It's so picturesque that God is relaxing with his feet on the earth.
• 33:29
  Ray Comfort: Yeah, he didn't have one.
• 33:36
  Ray Comfort: That's just like Dawkins, who says everything has an appearance of order.
• 33:40
  Ray Comfort: What a stupid thing to say.
• 33:43
  Emeal Zwayne: Everything looks so orderly, so designed, but we'll believe anything other than there was an orderly designer.
• 33:49
  Emeal Zwayne: It's just absolute lunacy.
• 33:51
  Oscar Navarro: I just read.
• 33:52
  Oscar Navarro: Cs Lewis has this quote where he says the error that we make is that we don't follow the sunbeam back to the sun.
• 34:00
  Oscar Navarro: That's what Bertrand Russell, david Hume and Dawkins is doing is that they're seeing God's creation, they're seeing it in all its glory, but they're not following the sunbeam back to the sun.
• 34:12
  Emeal Zwayne: I'm going to put that in my quotes file.
• 34:14
  Emeal Zwayne: That's so good.
• 34:16
  Emeal Zwayne: You should send that to us.
• 34:17
  Emeal Zwayne: Yeah, it gives an immediate like yeah, oh, I see the sun, I'm enamored with it, but we don't trace it.
• 34:24
  Emeal Zwayne: Oh, it comes from the sun.
• 34:25
  Mark Spence: Creation creator, a painting painter it totally reminds me of Isaiah 46, verses 9 through 10.
• 34:34
  Mark Spence: I knew you were going to do that, okay, but Mark, listen, though.
• 34:40
  Emeal Zwayne: I love Matthew 10, 29 to 30.
• 34:42
  Emeal Zwayne: We're so sorry.
• 34:46
  Emeal Zwayne: You don't even need to quote scripture.
• 34:48
  Emeal Zwayne: It's actual deception because you're pretending you know and you don't Remember the former things and not.
• 34:56
  Emeal Zwayne: Two sparrows sold for a copper coin and not one of them falls to the ground, apart from your Father's will.
• 35:02
  Emeal Zwayne: I think an error we make as people is we extrapolate from.
• 35:06
  Emeal Zwayne: God is so great, he's so massive.
• 35:09
  Emeal Zwayne: There's no way he can be concerned with the minute or know about the minute.
• 35:13
  Emeal Zwayne: But Scripture, time and again right.
• 35:16
  Emeal Zwayne: He knows our sitting down and our uprising.
• 35:17
  Emeal Zwayne: He knows the number of hairs upon our head.
• 35:19
  Emeal Zwayne: Two sparrows can't fall to the ground without His will.
• 35:24
  Mark Spence: God is detailed, yeah, and we don't have to worry about our lives, and I like the way the King James words that it says do not put a thought in your head about your life, right?
• 35:33
  Mark Spence: So not even a single thought about your life.
• 35:37
  Mark Spence: No, listen, it's above your pay grade.
• 35:39
  Mark Spence: God's in control, he knows what he's doing.
• 35:42
  Mark Spence: Let him be God.
• 35:43
  Mark Spence: Let him be God.
• 35:45
  Emeal Zwayne: And you know, when you think about what Jesus talked about regarding children Ray to be like a child you know one of the biggest aspects, because you understand Ray.
• 35:56
  Emeal Zwayne: Why is that?
• 35:57
  Mark Spence: Because he's a little.
• 36:00
  Emeal Zwayne: He's a little boy in a little boy's body.
• 36:02
  Emeal Zwayne: But, ray, where did you read that quote?
• 36:07
  Ray Comfort: It's my quote, but I forgot what I was going to say.
• 36:12
  Ray Comfort: Well, I was going to say come as a little child and the sovereignty of God puts us in our place.
• 36:16
  Ray Comfort: Yeah, I think the sovereignty of God is both comforting and disturbing at the same time.
• 36:21
  Ray Comfort: Yeah, the thing that God knows and sees everything is tremendously comforting if you're right with Him, but if you're not, then it's tremendously disturbing, yeah.
• 36:30
  Emeal Zwayne: Well, I do remember I was going to say but one element of being a child is total trust in your parents, in terms of wherever they're taking you yeah, like a kid isn't worried about directions.
• 36:40
  Emeal Zwayne: They, in terms of wherever they're taking you, like a kid, isn't worried about directions, they're not worried about you.
• 36:41
  Emeal Zwayne: Know, do my parents know where they're going?
• 36:42
  Emeal Zwayne: Or the mortgage, or yeah, or it's just like here we go, we're going on a trip, guys, yay.
• 36:48
  Emeal Zwayne: And the kids?
• 36:48
  Emeal Zwayne: They don't have to do anything.
• 36:49
  Emeal Zwayne: What about the price of gas?
• 36:50
  Emeal Zwayne: Nothing, and they trust their parents will get them there.
• 37:07
  Mark Spence: If they're tired they'll come up and hold them in their arms and that's the rest.
• 37:10
  Mark Spence: We need to have Nestle.
• 37:10
  Mark Spence: I love that thought.
• 37:11
  Mark Spence: Nestle ourselves into God and trust him.
• 37:12
  Mark Spence: There's a family that came by yesterday to visit and one of the kids said we're going on a special trip, they're taking us to someplace special and the father looks over at me and he's all that changes.
• 37:21
  Mark Spence: I mean we can take them anywhere we want to take them.
• 37:23
  Mark Spence: I mean whether we're going to Disneyland or whether we're just going to the grocery store, someplace special, they could just change wherever we want it to be, just to keep them anticipating and to keep them in good, having a good behavior and a good attitude.
• 37:32
  Emeal Zwayne: Yeah, and you know, again to tie that into the nature of God, like we talked about before, you have some kids that are dysfunctional, like they're terrified to go on a trip with their parents because their parents are abusive.
• 37:44
  Emeal Zwayne: You know, they might just haul off and smack them in the face and give them a bloody lip, but no, speaking of that.
• 37:52
  Mark Spence: Don't lose your thought.
• 37:53
  Mark Spence: I have a friend.
• 37:54
  Mark Spence: When he would be driving his vehicles and his kids would be in the back seat and they were doing things that they shouldn't do.
• 38:01
  Mark Spence: He had a friend.
• 38:02
  Mark Spence: He would just start whacking all of them in the back seat.
• 38:05
  Mark Spence: He ate a little steak, does that?
• 38:06
  Mark Spence: You know?
• 38:07
  Ray Comfort: anybody, this guy, I knew a man In the flesh.
• 38:09
  Ray Comfort: It was in the flesh.
• 38:14
  Emeal Zwayne: It was a tiny steak.
• 38:15
  Ray Comfort: And this really nice guy couldn't reach the kids and he didn't know which was the guilty one and which wasn't.
• 38:19
  Ray Comfort: He got the whole three of them with a stick.
• 38:20
  Mark Spence: They all get whacked with a stick.
• 38:21
  Ray Comfort: Yeah, just in case one was guilty and one wasn't Harmless little thing, poor Rachel, tiny little stick.
• 38:29
  Emeal Zwayne: But my whole point was that the reason why the kids can be at rest is because they know their parents love them, they know that they're good parents, they're not going to abuse them, they're not going to abandon them on the side of the road, and so they can rest in that.
• 38:44
  Mark Spence: Listen.
• 38:44
  Mark Spence: That's very insightful because once you know the character of God, you can rest.
• 38:49
  Mark Spence: You rest in all the things that are happening and coming your way.
• 38:52
  Mark Spence: It's like, what can man now say to you?
• 38:55
  Oscar Navarro: Right Trust in that you brought up a verse that reminds me of um, something that I hear from from people all the time an objection towards god.
• 39:04
  Oscar Navarro: The verse you mentioned is that he knows every hair on her head.
• 39:07
  Oscar Navarro: Often one of the objections that I hear from somebody is especially when it comes to, you know, homosexuality, same-sex, marriage, things that nature.
• 39:14
  Oscar Navarro: You'll hear someone say something effective like why would care?
• 39:17
  Oscar Navarro: Why would god care about what happens in the bedroom or between the sheets, as though it's like so petty and so small and so unimportant, like why could he possibly care?
• 39:26
  Oscar Navarro: And I just I always say don't you realize that he cares?
• 39:31
  Oscar Navarro: And the beauty in that I had stepfathers who didn't give a rip about whether I went to school, about what I was doing in my spare time.
• 39:38
  Oscar Navarro: They could care less about what was happening.
• 39:41
  Oscar Navarro: And God cares, he seeks after you, he cares about the small things, he cares about the big things, because that is the kind of God that he is.
• 39:51
  Emeal Zwayne: Yeah, Well, we want a governmental system to care about crime.
• 39:55
  Emeal Zwayne: They're stopping that these days in our country and in our state especially, but we want them to care because that's for the good of society.
• 40:04
  Emeal Zwayne: So yeah, joe Broeger said anger and bitterness are two noticeable signs of being focused on self and not trusting God's sovereignty in your life.
• 40:14
  Emeal Zwayne: When you believe that God causes all things to work together for good to those who belong to Him and love Him, you can respond to trials with joy instead of anger and bitterness.
• 40:24
  Emeal Zwayne: And yeah, you know we can, because we know God's heart, we know his sovereignty and Stephen Sharnock said in regard of God, patience is a submission to his sovereignty To endure a trial, simply because we, again, we're tracing that sunbeam back to the sun and we're saying God allowed this right, like he did with Job.
• 41:03
  Emeal Zwayne: He had a purpose in it.
• 41:05
  Emeal Zwayne: And we go back again to James to remember the patience of Job, to remember that the end intended by the Lord, that the Lord is very compassionate and merciful.
• 41:14
  Ray Comfort: I was just thinking.
• 41:15
  Ray Comfort: The whole issue of God's sovereignty is like a moonbeam you trace it back to the moon.
• 41:21
  Oscar Navarro: But then you'd have to trace it back to the sun, because the only reason why the moon has a beam?
• 41:24
  Oscar Navarro: Yes, it reflects the moon.
• 41:25
  Ray Comfort: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 41:25
  Emeal Zwayne: The moon has not its own light All the way back there.
• 41:27
  Emeal Zwayne: So I want to kind of wrap up with this one thing Look, there are a lot of you out there right now that are facing difficult situations.
• 41:37
  Emeal Zwayne: You lost your job and you don't understand why.
• 41:40
  Emeal Zwayne: You were faithful, you were diligent, you're dedicated, you're hardworking, you had a wife that you loved with your whole heart, or a husband that you loved with your whole heart.
• 41:50
  Emeal Zwayne: You just entered into your retirement years.
• 41:52
  Emeal Zwayne: You had all these plans.
• 41:53
  Emeal Zwayne: You were so excited and then cancer struck or some other disease, and you lost your loved one.
• 41:59
  Emeal Zwayne: Or maybe you're a man or a woman who's been desperately wanting to be married and now you're older in life and you haven't been married and you feel like your opportunity is gone.
• 42:10
  Emeal Zwayne: We know how tough that can be, but again you are faced with a choice.
• 42:15
  Emeal Zwayne: You can either become bitter or better.
• 42:17
  Emeal Zwayne: You can either trust the Lord or not, and we say this with sympathy.
• 42:21
  Emeal Zwayne: We did that episode on sympathy.
• 42:22
  Emeal Zwayne: We understand, because we've gone through things that didn't go the way we want them to go, but you have to trust in the sovereignty of God.
• 42:29
  Emeal Zwayne: I want to read something that really moved me to tears deeply when I read it this morning.
• 42:35
  Emeal Zwayne: This is more geared toward adults, so for those of you that let your kids listen, you may want to pause right now.
• 42:41
  Emeal Zwayne: It's not in any way graphic, but it's more of a mature topic.
• 42:47
  Emeal Zwayne: But this is a lady named Margaret Claxon, and she said this through no fault or choice of my own.
• 42:56
  Emeal Zwayne: I am unable to express my sexuality in the beauty and intimacy of Christian marriage as God intended when he created me a sexual being in his own image.
• 43:04
  Emeal Zwayne: To seek to do this outside of marriage is, by the clear teaching of scripture, to sin against God and against my own nature.
• 43:12
  Emeal Zwayne: As a committed Christian, then, I have no alternative but to live a life of voluntary celibacy.
• 43:18
  Emeal Zwayne: I must be chaste, not only in body, but in mind and spirit as well.
• 43:23
  Emeal Zwayne: Since I'm now in my 60s, I think that my experience of what this means is valid.
• 43:29
  Emeal Zwayne: I want to go on record as having proved that, for those who are committed to God's will, his commands are his enablings.
• 43:36
  Emeal Zwayne: My whole being cries out continually for something I may not have.
• 43:40
  Emeal Zwayne: My whole life must be lived in the context of this never-ceasing tension.
• 43:44
  Emeal Zwayne: My professional life, my social life, my personal life, my Christian life all are subject to its constant and powerful pull.
• 43:53
  Emeal Zwayne: As a Christian, I have no choice but to obey God, cost what it may.
• 43:59
  Emeal Zwayne: I must trust him to make it possible for me to honor him in my singleness, that this is possible.
• 44:06
  Emeal Zwayne: A mighty cloud of witness will join me to attest.
• 44:09
  Emeal Zwayne: Multitudes of single Christians in every age and circumstance have proved God's sufficiency in this matter.
• 44:16
  Emeal Zwayne: He has promised to meet our needs and he honors his word.
• 44:21
  Emeal Zwayne: If we seek fulfillment in him, we shall find it.
• 44:24
  Emeal Zwayne: It may not be easy, but whoever said that Christian life was easy?
• 44:28
  Emeal Zwayne: The badge of Christ's discipleship was a cross.
• 44:31
  Emeal Zwayne: What must I live my life?
• 44:34
  Emeal Zwayne: Why must I live my life alone?
• 44:36
  Emeal Zwayne: I do not know, but Jesus Christ is Lord of my life.
• 44:40
  Emeal Zwayne: I believe in the sovereignty of God and I accept my singleness from his hand.
• 44:45
  Emeal Zwayne: He could have ordered my life otherwise, but he has not chosen to do so as his child.
• 44:51
  Emeal Zwayne: I must trust his love and wisdom.
• 44:54
  Emeal Zwayne: Wow, how mature is that?
• 44:57
  Emeal Zwayne: And the reason that hit me is because this isn't some armchair quarterback who's?
• 45:05
  Emeal Zwayne: sitting back and saying oh yeah, this is how you should.
• 45:08
  Emeal Zwayne: This is a woman who she's in her 60s and she's saying this is where it's ended.
• 45:14
  Emeal Zwayne: I don't believe I'm going to get married.
• 45:16
  Emeal Zwayne: This is what God has.
• 45:17
  Emeal Zwayne: And yet the beauty of being able to say I submit to the Lord, I accept it from his hand.
• 45:24
  Emeal Zwayne: Yeah, ray, you put it well.
• 45:27
  Emeal Zwayne: That's Christian maturity.
• 45:28
  Mark Spence: Yeah, though he's slimy.
• 45:29
  Mark Spence: Yeah, I don't trust him.
• 45:31
  Ray Comfort: Yeah, that's why you need a dog.
• 45:36
  Emeal Zwayne: That's Ray's answer to everything Dogs and chickens, yeah, yeah.
• 45:39
  Emeal Zwayne: So anyhow, yeah, god's sovereignty, we can trust him, we can rely on him, we can rest in him.
• 45:48
  Emeal Zwayne: He does as he pleases and he's good and he loves us, and no one can separate us from that love.
• 45:57
  Emeal Zwayne: No one can snatch us out of his hand.
• 45:59
  Emeal Zwayne: Amen, amen.
• 45:59
  Emeal Zwayne: Thank you for joining us, friends.
• 46:00
  Ray Comfort: We one can snatch us out of his hand Amen.
• 46:01
  Emeal Zwayne: Amen.
• 46:01
  Emeal Zwayne: Thank you for joining us, friends.
• 46:02
  Emeal Zwayne: We'll see you here next time on the Living Waters Podcast.