Daniel 7 • The Throne of Mysteries - And Victories
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(This transcript was prepared using software tools and has not been reviewed for complete accuracy.)
We're looking at Daniel 7 today, Daniel chapter 7.
And as we move into these prophetic portions of the book of Daniel, let me remind you that we're not just moving from biographies to prophecies, but rather there's a switch in emphasis.
'Til this point in the book of Daniel, we have had others dreaming and Daniel interpreting.
Now we have Daniel dreaming and angels interpreting.
And the consequence of that is there's some additional precision in prophecies that we've already been introduced to.
In the time of Nebuchadnezzar, he dreamed a dream of a great statue that had a head of gold, shoulders of silver, belly of bronze, legs of iron, that was toppled by a rock from heaven cut without human hands.
That prophecy gets repeated but with different images in Daniel chapter 7.
Instead, we have four beasts that come out of a churning sea.
There is a beast that looks like a lion, a bear, we'll see a panther or leopard, in addition an undescribed beast.
Now, why beasts for further clarity?
Well, we have similar conventions our day.
Groups of people are identified by animals.
As my tie with explain to you, there's a city north of us named Chicago that may be identified by an animal known as a cub.
And schools do such things as well, right?
There are red birds in Metamora, I am told.
And Dunlap identified by eagles.
Anybody from Dunlap here?
I'm expecting a few cheers to go with this.
There we go.
[Cheering]
Peoria Central by lions.
Manual by rams.
Washington by panthers.
[Cheering]
Peoria Christian by chargers.
Now, I know there are other mascots, but that's all the animals I know.
[Laughter]
Nations do the same.
The United States known by what animal?
The eagle.
Russia: a bear.
And in ancient times, nations were identified as well.
The first animal that comes out of the churning sea is a lion with the wings of an eagle.
Now, some of you may already recognize that image, not from ancient times but from the first Gulf War, if you were involved or perhaps a child of yours.
What nation even today identifies itself by a lion with eagle's wings?
That's Iraq, which actually is modern Babylon.
Babylon has been for centuries and centuries identified by a lion with eagle's wings.
After the lion that comes out of the sea, there is a bear, the representation of ancient Persia.
And remember that Nebuchadnezzar and Belshazzar was succeeded by Cyrus the Persian.
After that, there is a leopard that comes out of the sea, representative of Greece.
Do you remember that Alexander the Grace moved with great speed across the ancient world, conquering all the known civilized world before he was age 33, which was when he died.
And then his kingdom was divided among four generals, one of whom ultimately superseded all other three: His name was Antiochus Epiphanes, and he became the great enemy of Israel and the precursor to Rome.
Rome, the great ruler of the Iron Age with its ten Caesars.
And you may remember that the last beast to come out of the water has ten horns, far more powerful than any other previous animal.
Remember, animals have two horns: He has five times, this last beast.
And with iron teeth as the Roman short sword in the Iron Age conquered the known world.
And great cruelty as the last beast to come out tramples upon all of those that he defeats.
Those are the animals that come out of the water.
In some measure, we have to say: Why do we see all that?
I must tell you that in ancient Hebrew would understand that there is an immediate point.
They would recognize the succeeding empires as they were occurring, some that were happening even in the time of Daniel.
But that point establishes a pattern that will be picked up later in the book of Revelation as the beasts that are being indicated in the ancient world are reflected in a pattern at the end of the world.
As we go through these prophecies of Daniel, it's important that we recognize both things are occurring: There is an immediate point and there's a pattern for a future purpose.
Let's think on that as we look at this next portion of Daniel chapter 7.
We'll be looking at verses 9-14, which is the portion after the beasts come out of the water.
Would you stand with me as we honor God's Word and look at Daniel 7 verses 9-14 as Daniel reports what he sees next after the animals come out of the water.
Verse 9, "'As I looked, thrones were placed, and the Ancient of Days took his seat; his clothing was white as snow, and the hair of his head like pure wool; his throne was fiery flames; its wheels were burning fire.
A stream of fire issued and came out from before him; a thousand thousands served him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him; the court sat in judgment, and the books were opened.
I looked then because of the sound of the great words that the horn was speaking.
And as I looked, the beast was killed, and its body destroyed and given over to be burned with fire.
As for the rest of the beasts, their dominion was taken away, but their lives were prolonged for a season and a time.
I saw in the night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven there came one like a son of man, and he came to the Ancient of Days and was presented before him.
And to him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all peoples and nations and languages should serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed.'"
Let's pray together.
>>> Heavenly Father, this is hard for us, but You put it in Your Word that it might strengthen us.
And so we would recognize as we face daily trials in a temporary world that You are preparing us to understand a God who sits upon a throne forever.
And to Him all purposes are driven and by Him all nations will ultimately be united to worship Christ our King.
Teach us in this moment how we might prepare for that kingdom.
We ask in Jesus' name.
Amen.
>>> Please be seated.
If you were to go to the rad--, renewed ruins of ancient Ephesus even today, as you're walking down the main street into the marketplace, the statue that your eye cannot avoid seeing is on a pedestal a very large stone globe.
And on the globe there is just the remnants of a foot of a statue that used to rise above the globe.
Once there was the great image of the Roman emperor Trajan who stood upon the globe, but his kingdom has long since passed away.
All that remains of Trajan is a shattered stone foot upon the globe that was supposed to mark his great dominion.
The importance of his dominion and how easy it was to focus on one who was passing away is indicated in the correspondence that we still have between Trajan and one of his local governors who was known as Pliny the Younger, the letter from Pliny the Younger about a concern that he had in his governorship.
He wrote this: "Emperor Trajan, I interrogated those who were identified by informants as to whether they were Christians, giving them two or three opportunities to renounce their superstition by threatening them with punishment if they did not.
Those who persisted in their claim I executed.
Under further interrogation, some asserted that the sum and substance of their fault is that they meet on a fixed day before dawn and they sing a hymn to their Christ, as though he is a God.
They pledge themselves to him by oath, not to some crime or fraud.
To make sure I judged it necessary to determine if it was true by torturing two of the female slaves who were called deaconesses by the Christians.
But I discovered nothing else but their excessive superstition.
I'm consulting you now, Emperor Trajan, about what to do next because of the numbers involved.
Many persons of every age, rank, and gender are involved for the contagion of this superstition has spread not only to the cities but to the villages and to the farms.
What should I do?"
Trajan's response: "If they are proved guilty, kill them."
You could not be a Christian in that era without recognizing what would draw your attention: informants in the church.
If they've turned you over to the authorities, you could be tortured or killed.
What you had to do, which would be so hard to do under such trial, is take your eyes off the immediate and remember the eternal.
Trajan is king for a moment: We worship the eternal King.
Nothing is actually more wise or prudent than to turn over our eternity to the only true God and true ruler over all things.
And it is that point that Daniel is making here as he talks about these successive temporary empires and reminds us who in fact is in charge.
What does the big picture reveal?
You begin to discern as you consider the mystery of the thrones.
Who, after all, sits upon the first throne?
Verse 9, "'As I looked, thrones were placed, and the Ancient of Days took his seat.'"
What Daniel is reminding us here by this vision is one very simple truth: If the Ancient of Days takes His seat on the throne above all thrones of men, our God is great.
And I need the voice of Tony the Tiger to say this: Our God is great.
And the way we need to see that is by the dimensions of His divinity, of His greatness that are being unfolded here.
He is, after all, one with great wisdom.
If you look at verse 9, it says about the middle: "'The Ancient of Days took his seat; his clothing was white as snow, and the hair of his head like pure wool.'"
He is the Ancient of Days.
Nothing surprises Him.
He's seen it all before.
"Before one of ours days came to be, He knew them altogether," says the psalmist.
He is the one who is before all things.
Empires have come and gone.
Kings have risen and fallen.
The Ancient of Days is unchanging.
He is the God who sits upon the throne.
And because of that, He has great wisdom, shown by the dignity of one with white hair saying, "I have the wisdom of years."
But it is not merely wisdom on display: His clothing was white as snow, as if to say not only white hair but white snow; He is without stain or spot or blemish.
There is no dirt upon Him.
He is not only very wise: He is pure; He is righteous, so righteous that the throne upon which He sits blazes in fire, as if to say the purity is in such radiance that it bursts into flame to declare the holiness of this God.
It's an image we know from Isaiah 6.
Do you remember?
As the seraphim fly around the throne that is in heaven and those who are identified as the burning ones not only speak with peals of thunder but declare what the fire represents: "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty and the whole earth is full of His glory."
And to show that that glory of His purity actually spreads across the earth, we read that the throne has wheels of fire, as though it cannot be constrained.
This is the God worthy of praise, because His praise cannot be constrained.
In fact, the flame comes out as a stream from the throne going out into the nations of the earth, as if to say while it cannot be constrained, neither can the throne be consumed.
He has supernatural power, which shall go out to judge all peoples.
If you see what is being described here, you learn of a God who is supernatural and irrepressible and worthy to judge the nations.
And it is precisely what He is about to do.
We don't just understand the nature of the Ancient One who sits upon the throne but the nature of the accused now who is brought before the throne room, which is now a court room.
Do you remember, verse 10?
"'A stream of fire issued out and came out before him; a thousand thousands served him, ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him.'"
Why all this honor?
Because "'the court sat in judgment, and the books were opened.'"
Not now the Lamb's Book of Life but the indictments, as we remember the words of Ecclesiastes: "God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden thing, whether it be good or evil."
The books are opened.
And then the accused presented, verse 11.
"'I looked then because of the sound of the great words that the horn was speaking.'"
Now, that is strange language to us.
But if you will think of it, remember, even the nation of Rome is here represented by ten horns, incomparable plower--, power, not just two horns and an ordinary creature but a creature with ten horns.
And one of those horns we have been introduced to already in verse 8.
I didn't read that to you earlier, but look at it.
Daniel, as he writes, he says, "'I considered the horns,'" that is the ten horns, "'and behold, there came up among them another horn, a little one, before which three of the first horns were plucked up by the roots.
And behold, in this horn were eyes like the eyes of a man, and a mouth speaking great things.'"
Some of your bibles will translate, "'and a mouth speaking arrogant things,'" as though there is a human power that has arisen, displacing three other powers and this one now begins to speak with arrogant words by which it will be judged and executed before all the other horns.
Who is that?
I must tell you, the commentators very hugely: I'm going to tell you my understanding, I'll tell you where others disagree and then tell you where we all agree.
Here's what people struggle with: Is this horn that speaks arrogantly, displacing three others, is that Antiochus Epiphanes, that is one who came displacing the four generals after Alexander the Great and became the chief enemy of Israel because he had been embarrassed by Israel in a campaign that he was conducting against Egypt?
And he became so vicious that he actually did decimate the nation, that is one out of every ten people was to be killed.
He put a pig upon the altar of God in the temple of Jehovah, declaring that it should be workit--, worshipped and boasted that he was the most high god.
It follows naturally after, as it were, being described here the animals coming out of the sea that are Babylon, Persia, Greece, and then the beginnings of the Roman Empire unfolding.
Now, other people don't like that interpretation.
I'll show you why.
They would look at Revelation chapter 13.
And if you have your bibles, you might want to turn there.
Because they will say there is so much in the beast that is being judged here in Daniel chapter 7 that seems to refer not to Antiochus Epiphanes but to the antichrist at the end of the era.
If you're in Revelation 13, you'll see a description, and you'll recognize certain echoes of Daniel chapter 7.
Revelation 13, now the apostle John writing.
He says, "I saw a beast rising out of the sea."
Well, that sounds very familiar, doesn't it?
"With ten horns," still familiar, "and seven heads."
Well, that's new information.
That's not what we've heard before.
"With ten diadems on its horns," again, new information, "and blasphemous names on its head."
Well, we had heard about blasphemy and arrogant speech before; that's familiar.
"And the beast that I saw was like a leopard; its feet were like a bear's, and its mouth was like a lion's mouth.
And to it the dragon," that is Satan, "gave his power and his throne and great authority."
Now, what happens as you read that account is you say: There are echoes of Daniel here.
We've heard about a bear before.
We've heard about a beast before.
We've heard about a leopard before.
But there are things that don't cohere either, to which I remind you there is a point of the original and a pattern later.
And we probably will keep from dividing as Christians if we recognize that's what occurring.
What typically divides people is they say, "There was no early point or there is no later pattern," instead of saying there was an immediate point as God's people were being prepared to handle the trials and the persecutous--, persecutions of Antiochus Epiphanes.
But as we, at a much later date, are being reminded of what happened back then to prepare for what is ahead.
Look at verse 5 of Revelation 13.
"And the beast was given a mouth uttering haughty and blasphemous words, and it was allowed to exercise authority for forty-two months," which, by the way, is the pattern again: Antiochus Epiphanes ruled for three and a half years before internal organ failure actually killed him.
Verse 6, "It opened its mouth to utter blasphemies against God, blaspheming his name and dwelling, that is, those who dwell in heaven.
Also it was allowed to make war on the saints and to conquer them.
And authority was given it over every tribe and people and language and nation."
There are certain things that reflect back, what Antiochus Epiphanes did.
He was the one who made war against the saints; he was the one who did blasphemous things like put a pig upon the altar.
But he never did rule all nations.
There was a point that Daniel was making.
There is a pattern that later biblical writers are picking up.
Now, whether you agree or do--, or disagree with that, I will tell you something: There is something that all Bible believers agree with.
What is the basic point of Daniel chapter 7?
God will judge evil.
That which opposes Him will be overturned.
Our God reigns.
And His purposes will be fulfilled upon this earth.
He will do as He chooses and no force shall stop Him.
Our God will be the last word on whatever needs to be done to accomplish His purposes.
God will judge and overrule and destroy anything that opposes Him.
Our God is great.
He is irrepressible, supernatural, cannot be constrained, and He comes to judge.
And those truths cannot be denied as what Daniel 7 is making clear to us.
We believe that there is a destiny for the world, a destiny for believers, and it has been shown in the past and will be repeated in the future.
God will have the final say, because He is and shall be upon the throne.
And what difference does it make for us today to say, "God is upon the throne and that does not change, though circumstances change greatly"?
Kingdoms may come and go.
Trials may come and go.
But our God is upon the throne.
Why does that make a difference?
I think of it in terms of an older woman in our congregation in St. Louis a few years ago.
She was fighting cancer.
And she came to church one Sunday informing us that the doctor at the last appointment had given her a list of new drugs, which was a virtual scorecard to say: The cancer was winning and what she had been taking was not working.
And she said as she left that doctor's office looking at that list of new drugs, she said, "The changed drugs I recognized were an instrument of Satan to bring despair to my heart."
And so she looked at that changed list of drugs, and if you knew her you knew this was true.
She said, "I screamed at it: But my God does not change!"
And it is the truth.
Our drugs may change.
Our families may change.
Our circumstances may change.
Our God does not change.
He is upon the throne.
His ends are just and good.
He is holy.
He is in charge.
He is the supernatural God.
His throne goes wherever He chooses to bring His rule upon the earth that He may accomplish all that He intends.
As we understand that, we take hope that there is a God who rules beyond the immediate.
And we keep our eye on that despite what threatens to capture our attention right now.
But it will make no difference just to recognize that God is great if we don't recognize the other thing that is being communicated here in the mystery of the thrones: And that is that God is not only great; He is good.
How do we know that?
By the next person who is presented before the throne of the Ancient of Days.
He is introduced to us in verse 13.
There Daniel, speaking of his vision, says, "'I saw in the night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven there came one like a son of man, and he came to the Ancient of Days and was presented before him.'"
Now, who is that who comes to stand before the throne of the Ancient of Days without judgment?
He is one like a son of man.
Well, you know that title, don't you?
What was Jesus' most common title for Himself?
He declared Himself to be what?
Son of Man.
Now, if you were Hebrew, you would recognize that's not particularly special.
It just means a human.
There is one who came who was like a human.
I mean, if you're a C. S. Lewis fan, some of you, and you read "The Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe," you will recognize that there are people who are identified as sons of Adam and daughters of Eve.
A son of Adam is just a what?
A boy.
A daughter of Eve is a what?
A girl.
A son of man is just a person.
But the special wording is "there is one who came who was like a son of man."
And for Jesus to pick up that title is very key.
Eighty-one times in the gospels Jesus refers to Himself as the Son of Man.
Forty-one times in the book Matthew alone refers to Himself as the Son of Man.
Remember?
"'Foxes have holes and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head,'" referring to Himself as the Son of Man.
Well and good, except it's not the end of the description of the one who stands before the throne.
Yes, he came like a son of man, but do you remember right in the middle of verse 13?
"'Behold he came with the clouds of heaven.'"
Well, who comes on the clouds of heaven?
When Israel was released from slavery in Egypt, God appeared to them on Mount Sinai with peals of thunder and what covered?
Dense clouds.
Your God is here.
And when God led the people, there was a pillar of fire by night.
What was in the daytime?
A pillar of cloud.
God was here for His people.
God was declaring by the clouds His own presence.
And so you may remember that it is the divinity that is also indicated by the clouds after Jesus rose from the dead and then ascended into heaven.
Remember, He ascended in the clouds?
And what did the angels say to the disciples who were there looking?
"'Ye men of Israel, why do you stand gazing into heaven?
The one who is departed shall return in,'" what?
Like manner.
He will come again on the clouds.
It was the message that Jesus Himself would say.
Some of us were in the Mount of Olives just six months ago.
And at the Mount of Olives, Jesus was teaching His own disciples before He was to be crucified.
And He said these words: "'Then will appear at the end of time in heaven the sign of the Son of Man, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.'"
He is like us at the very same moment He is like God.
He is the eternal God-Man.
And He stands before the throne, and He is commissioned by the Ancient of Days.
After all, we now know who He is: a God-man, like us but like God at the same time.
And we also know His job.
Verse 14, "'To him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed.'"
He has a kingdom that shall not be destroyed.
It shall face no ultimate challenge.
It shall endure.
Nobody ultimately shall take control of it, because it will be over all nations and peoples.
And it shall be an everlasting kingdom.
This God-Man shall have a kingdom that is everlasting and all-encompassing.
It is eternal and it is universal.
And it is precisely the kingdom that was promised to David long before this prophecy in Daniel was ever given.
Do you remember in 2 Samuel 7, God said to David, "'From your loins, from your seed shall come one who will have a sure,'" that is unchallenged by any other nation, "'and everlasting kingdom.'"
The universal and eternal kingdom of God is prophesied in a Savior who will come on the clouds to be with us because He is like us.
It's compressed, but it's the great message that the Ancient of Days is commissioning the God-Man to come to establish His kingdom for the good of His people.
He will be the one who will live among us to do the will of God, and in doing so, He will establish for us a kingdom that is over all and forever.
It's a remarkable statement of what Daniel is helping us to understand Jesus' ultimate accomplishment will be.
Why do we need to know that?
Because what we are understanding is that rock that Daniel described already in the book of Daniel that would topple all other nations but itself would endure unchangingly is a rock that is not only very powerful: It is very good.
God will send the God-Man to establish His kingdom for His people and will rule and overrule all that is evil.
And we look for Him.
He is the Rock to which we cleme--, cling.
Both very great and very good.
Why do you need to know that today and not just some future day?
I think of the graduation of our oldest daughter, Corinne, from Covenant College.
Steven Corbett, a professor at the college, was the graduation speaker.
And as he was speaking, he gave an example of his need to cling to a rock that was both very great and very good.
He said that he and his wife had been blessed with a daughter who had Goldenhar syndrome when she was born.
It's a syndrome that causes a child to be born without facial bones.
Their daughter was born without any bones on the left side of her face and without a left eye.
And he said, "When that happened, in those days and weeks and months of anxiety and worry and concern, we had to cling to both sides of the rock.
We had to cling to the side of the rock that said our God was great so that we would have hope for tomorrow.
But we had to cling to the rock that was good so that we could trust Him today."
You and I will need that, too.
We get focused on the moment of the economy, the immediate family crisis, the next presidential election.
And we say, "Is God here or gone?"
And we cling to the rock, one that is eternal that is promising us His greatness and His goodness regardless of the tides of our circumstances.
You and I will need that rock.
I think of the words of Carolyn Custis Jones, Carolyn Custis James: "When faith is stripped to the bone and all your props and crutches are gone, your knowledge of God and that He is still on the throne is all that will keep you going."
Some of you know this better than I.
When all your props and crutches are gone, the family you hope for, the career you hope for, the health you've had for so long: When all your props and crutches are gone, it may be and may already have been your clinging to the rock that is very great and very good to believe that He is powerful, He's still on the throne, and His purposes are yes and amen in Christ Jesus for good.
That eternal promise is ours that we don't need just out there someday: I need that today; you need it today.
Maybe some of you needed it yesterday.
To believe you trust in a God who is very great and very good and has you in mind.
That's here too.
There is a mystery of the thrones that I didn't discuss with you yet.
It was right back in verse 9, right where we began.
Remember?
Daniel says, "'As I looked, thrones were placed, and the Ancient of Days took his seat.'"
Well, if the Ancient of Days has His throne, why do we need more thrones, plural?
Well, you say, because Jesus will ultimately be there, because He will sit upon His throne.
That's certainly what Jesus taught His disciples in Matthew 25: "'When the Son of Man comes in his glory and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne.'"
Where will that throne be?
At the right hand of God the Father Almighty where He sits right now making intercession for you and for me.
But Jesus is not the only one there.
Do you remember in Ephesians 2:6, we are told that because of our faith in Him, because we are united to Christ by spiritual faith, we are already seated where?
In heavenly places.
So strong an image of that is for the apostle Paul that he says in 1 Corinthians 6:23, "Do you not know that the saints will judge the world?"
Do you not know that we are to judge the earth?
There are multiple thrones in the courtroom of heaven for the judges who will assemble.
Who is going to sit in those thrones?
Look around you.
Who's going to sit in those thrones?
Yes.
You, those around you.
We, says the apostle, will judge the angels, which means that we in this day are part of the purposes of God for that day.
The thrones are being prepared for those who are part of the eternal plan and purpose of God.
And so these trials that we go through, the circumstances that are so hard, the things that we cannot explain, we live by faith through them in the Rock who is very great and very good and is using us in our clinging to Him to take a message of salvation and purpose to the world.
And when we cannot make sense of it, we turn back to Him and say, "But, God, You're still upon the throne.
I believe that by faith.
I claim it by faith.
I cannot make sense of this, but I know You're still upon the throne."
And for that reason, I can go on.
It's when you believe that there is a purpose beyond the immediate that a God of eternity is yet working and because He's on the throne that we have the ability to rise above the circumstances and believe God can do as He will, even through people as messed up, frail and weak as we, because He's prepared a throne for us.
That's my destiny; it's yours.
And because of that, we fulfill the purposes of God, even when we cannot make sense of the world about us.
I think of the amazing testimony of Dawson Trotman, you may remember, the one who began the Navigators Ministry.
He began some 75 years ago at a Texaco service station in Lomita, California, having himself just escaped going to jail, ministering to two young men, sailors, and telling them his testimony and the belief that God would use them as they also trusted in God.
And those two sailors called two more, and they began to meet in this little Bible study in the garage of the service station.
And Dawson Trotman began to share with these four the belief that he had that God could use His people for eternal purposes.
It was just silly.
I mean, you got four sailors, two of them new Christians, probably coming for the baked bean dinner more than for the Bible study.
And he's saying, "God can use us for eternal purposes."
They met for about six months and those four sailors say, "Dawson, if you'll quit your job at the lumberyard, we will provide funds so that you can be a missionary to the fleet.
Come on our ship.
Tell people what you've been telling us."
Six months or so later, a hundred conversions and people meeting for Bible study on the U.S.S. West Virginia, which was about to be deployed to where?
Pearl Harbor.
By that time, men were meeting regularly, 120, 130, for Bible study.
But the ship sunk.
And those sailors were dispersed across the pacific fleet.
Well, the plan's just undone.
It's just not working.
Except those hundred plus sailors began to take the gospel to the ships in which they were dispersed, and by the end of the war, there were 800 ships that had Bible studies being led by the Navigators, young men who were to now come back to the United States and under the GI Bill were to spread across the nation's colleges and universities, again leading Bible studies with the message of the gospel.
And the work of the Navigators spread and grew and influenced even young people at Urbana, so that you as a church began to support Bill Tell who had his ministry to the Navigators and even now as you are supporting him, has risen to a rank within the Navigators that he trains national leaders who are responsible for chapters of Navigators all over this country.
It's your ministry too.
How did all of this happen, that what seemed to be such a failure, seemed to be so wrong, seemed to make no sense at the time was yet part of God's eternal plan?
Dawson Trotman said in a later ministry speech, he said, "Listen, the need of the hour is to believe that God is God, that He sits upon the throne, and that He will be true to His purposes through us if we are obedient to His will."
It is God's calling to us today to recognize the circumstances, as difficult as they may be, as hard as they may be to understand, do not deny the eternal truths: Our God sits upon the throne.
He is very great and He is very good and He is working through His people who are throne-bound.
As you and I know that, we commit ourselves anew to the purposes of God with this profound belief: The need of this hour and every hour is to believe that God is God, that He is faithful to His purposes to those obedient to His will, and He will use us if we will but trust Him.
Why should you trust Him?
Because He's on the throne and He's very great and He's very good.
Trust Him, and He will use you.