Today's text from the ESV Study Bible: 2 Kings 5-8.
Naaman, commander of the army of the king of Syria, was a great man with his master and in high favor, because by him the Lord had given victory to Syria. (2 Kings 5:1)
As I was reading today's portion of our year-long journey, the proclamation that Yahweh had given victory to a pagan land, one pagan over another, did not escape my attention.
God desires that we understand that he is not only completely sovereign over His people, but is sovereign over all. Nothing anywhere happens without his ordaining ... in all His creation.
From the InterVarsity Press New Bible Commentary:
"A theme which occurs at several points throughout the story is that Israel’s God is the world’s God; he is the only God and his power and interests are not local but cosmic in scale. This theme emerges as soon as Naaman is introduced. He was an Aramean commander through whom the LORD had given victory to Aram. Yahweh was therefore in control of the rise and fall of nations other than Israel."
From the ESV Study Bible:
"It was common throughout the ancient Near East for peoples to claim that their gods had given them victory in battle, but the claim here is of a distinctively monotheistic kind; here (as always in the Bible) Israel's God is responsible for victory or defeat in battles, no matter which gods may be worshiped by the victorious or defeated people."
It seems to me that perhaps a great many think that God might only be God if you believe in him. In other words, Kim Yong iL likely doesn't fall before Yahweh as King of Creation. Therefore, we deduce that Yahweh is not Lord over Kim Yong iL. But the Bible everywhere proclaims the opposite.
There is one God: Yahweh. And he is Lord of all, including despots like Kim Yong iL.
Think about that. Do you believe that?
If so, consider all that this means. Hitler was a rabid dog, possessed with evil, apart from God's elect, yet somehow in God's sovereignty a pawn in God's will.
Who has measured the Spirit of the Lord,
or what man shows him his counsel?
(Isaiah 40:13)



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