How does God exercise His supreme authority? Over the nations He exercises His authority by sovereign providences. If you go to the library or a Christian bookstore and get some old books of old sermons, you'll find that one of the doctrines the old preachers used to preach a lot about was providence. Nobody talks about providence anymore! But what did providence mean? It meant that God was above all, presiding. And that He worked things around like chessmen on the board, and people didn't know He was doing it.
Remember Nebuchadnezzar? He didn't know that he had been appointed of God to bring in the times of the Gentiles. All he had was an itch to conquer other nations! And the great sovereign God Almighty, with His plans for the world, let Nebuchadnezzar carry on. Darius was another man: God said, "I have ordained you even though you don't know Me." And the great God, in His sovereign providences, runs His world.
That's why I don't think that we should be too much wrought up. I didn't lose one minute's sleep when they declared the blockade on Cuba! Not because I didn't know about it, not because I'm not interested in world politics—I read up on it and listen to every broadcast I can—but I just know that there's a sovereign God who's working providentially in His world. One of these times a nation that is now closed, God will open that nation; and another nation that has had the gospel, God will close it. God's working providentially.
All things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose.
Romans 8:28 KJV
If you dared to believe that, it would take an awful lot of worry out of your heart! You wouldn't worry as much as you do if you knew that everything you did, if you were in the will of God and were not sinning, the Lord would work everything out for His own glory and for your good. That's God's sovereign providence.
Now, over His spiritual and eternal kingdom, He exercises His authority by the written Word. You see, there are two kingdoms coexisting: there's the kingdom of Adam, the kingdom of the flesh, which God is ruling over in His sovereign authority by His providences; and then there is the spiritual kingdom, which is a kingdom within a kingdom, and a wheel within a wheel.
We of the Church of Christ are a little spiritual kingdom within a much larger natural kingdom. And our Lord Jesus said, "That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit." It is possible to be born out of one kingdom into another—being translated out of the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of His love.
Now this is Remembrance Day. We haven't said very much about it because we're dedicated to the Word of the Lord. But I'll tell you that I haven't forgotten that better men than I am died that I might have freedom. I haven't forgotten that American boys and Canadian boys went out together! Many little arguments were all forgotten when the big guns started to boom and the shrapnel started to fly. They fought and bled and died together that the Union Jack may fly over City Hall and the Stars and Stripes over the White House. They did it that you and I have all the freedom that's good for us. My wife and I had three boys injured in that war; we know what it was to have five of them in uniform. We know a little of it firsthand.
And yet, what God calls the nations of the world—even the finest and most cultured—is the kingdom of darkness. Because He sees the devil and the dark spirits in high places ruling in the affairs of men. But when we're born out of the flesh into the kingdom of God, we are translated out of darkness into light! That's what it means to be born again. It doesn't merely mean joining a church or being baptized or going to church every Sunday—though a born-again man will do those things because he loves the people of God and seeks the fellowship of light.