Sovereignty Book Quotes

Politeness is the first thing people lose once they get the power.

No matter how tiny you look, you can lead huge men if you have what the huge men don't have.

Aesthetic criticism returns us to the autonomy of imaginative literature and the sovereignty of the solitary soul, the reader not as a person in society but as the deep self, our ultimate inwardness.

At one level, the message of the book of Ruth is that the life of the godly is not a straight line to glory, but they do get there.

[I]f justice is the end of law, law the work of the prince, and the prince the image of God; then by this reasoning, the law of the prince must be modelled on the law of God.

There is no buying the night flight with its hundred thousand stars, its serenity, its few hours of sovereignty.

This is part of the infinite goodness of God, that He should allow evil to exist, and out of it produce good.

No one dies halfway through the last act. – Heinrich Ibsen

In 1946, Bertrand Russell, a friend of Einstein, said it was necessary to use the fear of nuclear weapons to force all nations to give up their sovereignty and submit to the dictatorship of the United Nations.11

It is desperately essential in this hour that preachers recover a soaring vision of the supremacy of God. Life-changing, history-altering preaching will come only when pastors reclaim a high view of God's blazing holiness and are overshadowed by His absolute sovereignty. Towering thoughts of God's transcendent glory must captivate preachers' souls.

The time and intelligence that our ancestors spent on understanding the sovereignty revealed in Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are directed by our contemporaries in affirming and validating the sovereignty of our needs, wants, and feelings.

Here, then, was the crux. The king and his men believed that British wealth and status derived from the colonies. The erosion of authority in America, followed by a loss of sovereignty, would encourage rebellions in Canada, Ireland, the Caribbean, India. Dominoes would topple. “Destruction must follow disunion,” the colonial secretary, Lord Dartmouth, warned.

Ancient astrology was rather different from the modern horoscope. Its more learned practitioners enjoyed intellectual respectability, and there was a substantial overlap between astrology and philosophy. People would consult astrologers on anything, from the time and manner in which they were going to die to who was likely to win in the chariot-races that afternoon. The chronology of the origins and development of astrology are impossible to establish, and were debated even in the ancient world. Suffice it to say here that the Western tradition was one of many traditions: Indian, Chinese, Middle Eastern. It was Ptolemy, the Hellenistic geographer and astrologer, who first laid the technical foundations of Western astrology in his Tetrabiblos (‘Four Books’). But the rise in the prominence of astrology was closely tied to the Roman imperial regime. It greatly benefited emperors to have their sovereignty ‘written in the stars’.

The best expedient for preserving the state is never to grant a prerogative of sovereignty to any subject, much less a stranger, for it is a stepping stone to sovereignty.

There are many themes found in the Book of Psalms that are generally not found in modern music. These include the fear of God, the righteousness and justice of God, the sovereignty of God, the judgement of God, the evil of sin, spiritual and physical warfare, the arch enemies of the Christian, the destruction of the wicked, the reality of hell, the blessedness of the church, the vicious attacks upon the church, the commandments of God, the dominion of David’s son, and so on. Without the backdrop of these truths, the themes of love, mercy, faith, and salvation become largely meaningless.

Kant abolished God and made man God in His stead. We are still living in the age of the Kantian man, or Kantian man-god. Kant's conclusive exposure of the so-called proofs of the existence of God, his analysis of the limitations of speculative reason, together with his eloquent portrayal of the dgnity of rational man, has had results which might possibly dismay him. How recognizable, how familiar to us, is the man so beautifully portrayed in the Grundelgung, who confronted even with Christ turns away to consider the judgment of his own conscience and to hear the voice of his own reason. Stripped of the exiguous metaphysical background which Kant was prepared to allow him, this man is with us still, free, independent, lonely, powerful, rational, responsible, brave, the hero of so many novels and books of moral philosophy. The raison d'etre of this attractive but misleading creature is not far to seek. He is the offspring of the age of science, confidently rational and yet increasingly aware of his alienation from the material universe which his discoveries reveal; and since he is not a Hegelian (Kant, not Hegel, has provided Western ethics with its dominating image) his alienation is without cure. He is the ideal citizen of the liberal state, a warning held up to tyrants. He has the virtue which the age requires and admires, courage. It is not such a very long step from Kant to Nietzsche, and from Nietzsche to existentialism and the Anglo-Saxon ethical doctrines which in some ways closely resemble it. In fact Kant's man had already received a glorious incarnation nearly a century earlier in the work of Milton: his proper name is Lucifer.

Rather than be searched by hand, I chose to walk through the metal detector without my cart or my tank or even the plastic nubbins in my nose. Walking through the X-ray machine marked the first time I’d taken a step without oxygen in some months, and it felt pretty amazing to walk unencumbered like that, stepping across the Rubicon, the machine’s silence acknowledging that I was, however briefly, a nonmetallicized creature. I felt a bodily sovereignty that I can’t really describe except to say that when I was a kid I used to have a really heavy backpack that I carried everywhere with all my books in it, and if I walked around with the backpack for long enough, when I took it off I felt like I was floating.

Forgiveness has been distorted by religious conditioning. Religion is designed to control your personal authenticity, sovereignty, self empowerment, and check book. So drop all ideas of bending your knee to an entity that needs your worship as worship is parasitical.

THERE HAS BEEN A SILENT DIVORCE IN THE CHURCH, SPEAKING generally, between the Word and the Spirit. When there is a divorce, sometimes the children stay with the mother, sometimes with the father. In this divorce you have those on the Word side and those on the Spirit side. What is the difference? Those on the Word side stress earnestly contending for the faith once delivered to the saints, expository preaching, sound theology, rediscovering the doctrines of the Reformation—justification by faith, sovereignty of God. Until we get back to the Word, the honor of God’s name will not be restored. What is wrong with this emphasis? Nothing. It is exactly right, in my opinion. Those on the Spirit side stress getting back to the Book of Acts, signs, wonders, and miracles, gifts of the Holy Spirit—with places being shaken at prayer meetings, get in Peter’s shadow and you are healed, lie to the Holy Spirit and you are struck dead. Until we recover the power of the Spirit, the honor of God’s name will not be restored. What is wrong with this emphasis? Nothing. It is exactly right, in my opinion. The problem is, neither will learn from the other. But if these two would come together, the simultaneous combination would mean spontaneous combustion. And if Smith Wigglesworth’s prophecy got it right, the world will be turned upside down again.

Walking through the X-ray machine marked the first time I’d taken a step without oxygen in some months, and it felt pretty amazing to walk unencumbered like that, stepping across the Rubicon, the machine’s silence acknowledging that I was, however briefly, a nonmetallicized creature. I felt a bodily sovereignty that I can’t really describe except to say that when I was a kid I used to have a really heavy backpack that I carried everywhere with all my books in it, and if I walked around with the backpack for long enough, when I took it off I felt like I was floating.

Myth is essentially a cultural construct, a common understanding of the world that binds individuals and communities together. This understanding may be religious or secular. Ideas such as rebirth, heaven and hell, angels and demons, fate and freewill, sin, Satan and salvation are religious myths. Ideas such as sovereignty, nation state, human rights, women’s rights, animal rights and gay rights are secular myths. Religious or secular, all myths make profound sense to one group of people. Not to everyone. They cannot be rationalized beyond a point. In the final analysis, you either accept them or you don’t.

Why do people often feel bad in good environments and good in bad environments? Why did Mother Teresta think that affluent Westerners often seemed poorer than the Calcutta poor, the poorest of the poor? The paradox comes to pass because the impoverishments and enrichments of a self in a world are not necessarily the same as the impoverishments and enrichments of an organism in an environment. The organism is needy or not needy accordingly as needs are satisfied or not satisfied by its environment. The self in a world is rich or poor accordingly as it succeeds in identifying its otherwise unspeakable self, e.g., mythically, by identifying itself with a world-sign, such as a totem; religiously, by identifying itself as a creature of God...In a post-religious age, the only recourses of the self are self as transcendent and self as immanent. The impoverishment of the immanent self derives from a perceived loss of sovereignty to "them," the transcending scientists and experts of society. As a consequence, the self sees its only recourse as an endless round of work, diversion, and consumption of goods and services. Failing this and having some inkling of its plight, it sees no way out because it has come to see itself as an organism in an environment and so can't understand why it feels so bad in the best of all possible environments--say, a good family and a good home in a good neighborhood in East Orange on a fine Wednesday afternoon--and so finds itself secretly relishing bad news, assassinations, plane crashes, and the misfortunes of neighbors, and even comes secretly to hope for catastrophe, earthquake, hurricane, wars, apocalypse--anything to break out of the iron grip of immanence.

People who get into this bored, distracted, shallow frame of mind cease to give God the glory He deserves. The book of Malachi contains the sad, poignant story of a time in Israel’s history when the Lord’s own priests—the very ones charged with protecting and promoting His glory—had so fallen out of love with God that they ceased to honor Him at all. Bored and cynical, they offered sick and diseased animals on His altar—the dregs of their livestock that had no worth or value to anyone. And after offering such things, they would say, “This is contemptible,” or “What a burden this is.” You can picture them yawning or looking at their watches as they took their turns in God’s holy temple. If it had been today, they would have been texting their friends or playing games on their iPhones.

The Scripture was given to us to teach and to uplift. To provide a path to God. Occasionally a person fixates on a certain portion, a portion that many of us would consider narrative history--such as the book of Daniel. It is a record of Daniel's experience in exile, in the court of Babylon. We can see God's sovereignty over kings, in this case Nebuchadnezzar." Tate jingled the change in his pocket, unsure where Mitch was headed. "In addition to the historical aspects, there are spiritual lessons to be found within this portion of the Scripture--God's faithfulness to his people and his omnipotence." "But..." "But when someone fixates on one portion versus the Scripture as a whole, confusion sets in. They pick and choose certain words and use them to justify almost any action." Tate hesitated, then asked, "Even murder?" "Especially murder.

American Indians share a magnificent history — rich in its astounding diversity, its integrity, its spirituality, its ongoing unique culture and dynamic tradition. It's also rich, I'm saddened to say, in tragedy, deceit, and genocide. Our sovereignty, our nationhood, our very identity — along with our sacred lands — have been stolen from us in one of the great thefts of human history. And I am referring not just to the thefts of previous centuries but to the great thefts that are still being perpetrated upon us today, at this very moment. Our human rights as indigenous peoples are being violated every day of our lives — and by the very same people who loudly and sanctimoniously proclaim to other nations the moral necessity of such rights. Over the centuries our sacred lands have been repeatedly and routinely stolen from us by the governments and peoples of the United States and Canada. They callously pushed us onto remote reservations on what they thought was worthless wasteland, trying to sweep us under the rug of history. But today, that so-called wasteland has surprisingly become enormously valuable as the relentless technology of white society continues its determined assault on Mother Earth. White society would now like to terminate us as peoples and push us off our reservations so they can steal our remaining mineral and oil resources. It's nothing new for them to steal from nonwhite peoples. When the oppressors succeed with their illegal thefts and depredations, it's called colonialism. When their efforts to colonize indigenous peoples are met with resistance or anything but abject surrender, it's called war. When the colonized peoples attempt to resist their oppression and defend themselves, we're called criminals. I write this book to bring about a greater understanding of what being an Indian means, of who we are as human beings. We're not quaint curiosities or stereotypical figures in a movie, but ordinary — and, yes, at times, extraordinary — human beings. Just like you. We feel. We bleed. We are born. We die. We aren't stuffed dummies in front of a souvenir shop; we aren't sports mascots for teams like the Redskins or the Indians or the Braves or a thousand others who steal and distort and ridicule our likeness. Imagine if they called their teams the Washington Whiteskins or the Washington Blackskins! Then you'd see a protest! With all else that's been taken from us, we ask that you leave us our name, our self-respect, our sense of belonging to the great human family of which we are all part. Our voice, our collective voice, our eagle's cry, is just beginning to be heard. We call out to all of humanity. Hear us!

My friends, I do not believe it is preaching Christ and him crucified, to give people a batch of philosophy every Sunday morning and evening, and neglect the truths of this Holy Book. I do not believe it is preaching Christ and him crucified, to leave out the main cardinal doctrines of the Word of God, and preach a religion which is all a mist and a haze, without any definite truths whatever. I take it that man does not preach Christ and him crucified, who can get through a sermon without mentioning Christ's name once; nor does that man preach Christ and him crucified, who leaves out the Holy Spirit's work, who never says a word about the Holy Ghost, so that indeed the hearers might say, "We do not so much as know whether there be a Holy Ghost." And I have my own private opinion, that there is no such thing as preaching Christ and him crucified, unless you preach what now-a-days is called Calvinism. I have my own ideas, and those I always state boldly. It is a nickname to call it Calvinism. Calvinism is the gospel, and nothing else. I do not believe we can preach the gospel, if we do not preach justification by faith without works; not unless we preach the sovereignty of God in his dispensation of grace; nor unless we exalt the electing, unchangeable, eternal, immutable, conquering love of Jehovah; nor, I think, can we preach the gospel, unless we base it upon the peculiar redemption which Christ made for his elect and chosen people; nor can I comprehend a gospel which lets saints fall away after they are called, and suffers the children of God to be burned in the fires of damnation, after having believed. Such a gospel I abhor. The gospel of the Bible is not such a gospel as that. We preach Christ and him crucified in a different fashion, and to all gainsayers we reply, "We have not so learned Christ.

A pine cone cannot fall from a tree unless God is involved. A bumblebee cannot pollenate a flower or sting your arm apart from the will of God. Money cannot enter or exit your bank account apart from the sovereignty of God. Little Ernest cannot be born or be buried in that grave just a half-mile from my house apart from God’s will. Legislation cannot be passed in this country or in any other apart from God’s sovereignty. You hold this book in your hands because God sovereignly allows you to hold this book in your hands. Everything is under His sovereign rule. Some of us believe that God is a bit like the president. He has a lot of power and authority, but there are checks and balances to limit Him. He is limited by our human choices, the events of the future, the wrongs of the past, or by those who do not believe in Him. Some of His legislations could be vetoed. His popularity can ebb and flow. But God is not like that at all. There are no limits to His rule and power.

Perhaps the best way to understand the book of Revelation is that it is a prophetic critique of civil religion. By civil religion I mean the religion of state where the state is the actual object of worship. Civil religion is religious patriotism. Christians are called to practice responsible citizenship but to renounce religious patriotism. In the practice of civil religion, the truth that the state is what is actually being deified and worshiped is usually carefully concealed. Instead of directly worshiping the state as God, worship of the state is expressed through sacred symbols, myths, and personifications of the state treated with religious reverence. The tendency to deify the state is particularly pronounced in empires—rich and powerful nations that believe they have a divine right to rule other nations and a manifest destiny to shape history according to their agenda. God’s contention with empire is one of the major themes of the Bible. From Egypt and Assyria to Babylonia and Rome, the prophets constantly critique empire as a direct challenge to the sovereignty of God. This prophetic tradition of empire critique reaches its apex in the book of Revelation. John the Revelator tells us that Rome’s claim of a divine right to rule the nations and of a manifest destiny to shape history is the very thing that God has given to his Son, Jesus Christ. Thus the drama of Revelation is cast as an epic conflict between the Lamb (Jesus) and the Beast (Rome).

power is consolidated by eliminating intermediate structures of authority, often under the banner of liberation from those authorities. In his book The Ancien Régime and the Revolution, Tocqueville gives an account of this process in the case of France in the century preceding the Revolution. He shows that the idea of “absolute sovereignty” was not an ancient concept, but an invention of the eighteenth century that was made possible by the monarch’s weakening of the “independent orders” of society—self-governing bodies such as professional guilds and universities.

When a boy grows up in a “dysfunctional” family (perhaps there is no other kind of family), his interior warriors will be killed off early. Warriors, mythologically, lift their swords to defend the king. The King in a child stands for and stands up for the child’s mood. But when we are children our mood gets easily overrun and swept over in the messed-up family by the more powerful, more dominant, more terrifying mood of the parent. We can say that when the warriors inside cannot protect our mood from being disintegrated, or defend our body from invasion, the warriors collapse, go into trance, or die. The inner warriors I speak of do not cross the boundary aggressively; they exist to defend the boundary. The Fianna, that famous band of warriors who defended Ireland’s borders, would be a model. The Fianna stayed out all spring and summer watching the boundaries, and during the winter came in. But a typical child has no such protection. If a grown-up moves to hit a child, or stuff food into the child’s mouth, there is no defense—it happens. If the grown-up decides to shout, and penetrate the child’s auditory boundaries by sheer violence, it happens. Most parents invade the child’s territory whenever they wish, and the child, trying to maintain his mood by crying, is simply carried away, mood included. Each child lives deep inside his or her own psychic house, or soul castle, and the child deserves the right of sovereignty inside that house. Whenever a parent ignores the child’s sovereignty, and invades, the child feels not only anger, but shame. The child concludes that if it has no sovereignty, it must be worthless. Shame is the name we give to the sense that we are unworthy and inadequate as human beings. Gershen Kauffman describes that feeling brilliantly in his book, Shame, and Merle Fossum and Marilyn Mason in their book, Facing Shame, extend Kauffman’s work into the area of family shame systems and how they work. When our parents do not respect our territory at all, their disrespect seems overwhelming proof of our inadequacy. A slap across the face pierces deeply, for the face is the actual boundary of our soul, and we have been penetrated. If a grown-up decides to cross our sexual boundaries and touch us, there is nothing that we as children can do about it. Our warriors die. The child, so full of expectation of blessing whenever he or she is around an adult, stiffens with shock, and falls into the timeless fossilized confusion of shame. What is worse, one sexual invasion, or one beating, usually leads to another, and the warriors, if revived, die again. When a boy grows up in an alcoholic family, his warriors get swept into the river by a vast wave of water, and they struggle there, carried downriver. The child, boy or girl, unprotected, gets isolated, and has more in common with snow geese than with people.

Withdrawal from the world or accepting simplistic answers reveals human effort or human problem solving, while lament acknowledges who is ultimately in control. In the midst of a crisis, Lamentations points toward God and acknowledges his sovereignty regardless of the circumstances. Lamentations 1:1-3 reminds us of Jerusalem’s story by contrasting the past glory with the anguish of the present crisis. A dramatic change of fortune is demonstrated. The reality of this destruction presents the challenge of the book of Lamentations. How will God’s people respond? Will they only look for the answers they want to hear? Will they run and hide, or will they enter into the place of lament and embrace the reality of their situation? The historical context of the fall of Jerusalem as revealed in Lamentations 1:1-3 and Jeremiah 29:4-9 points to the necessity of Lamentations. By challenging the two primary temptations facing the exiles, Scripture now points the people of God toward the proper response to a broken world: lament.

After turning their backs on working-class issues, traditionally one of the core concerns of left parties, Democrats stood by while right-wing demagoguery took root and thrived. Then, after the people absorbed a fifty-year blizzard of fake populist propaganda, Democrats turned against the idea of “the people” altogether.17 America was founded with the phrase “We the People,” but William Galston, co-inventor of the concept of the Learning Class, urges us to get over our obsession with popular sovereignty. As he writes in Anti-Pluralism, his 2018 attack on populism, “We should set aside this narrow and complacent conviction; there are viable alternatives to the people as sources of legitimacy.”18 There certainly are. In the pages of this book, we have seen anti-populists explain that they deserve to rule because they are better educated, or wealthier, or more rational, or harder working. The contemporary culture of constant moral scolding is in perfect accordance with this way of thinking; it is a new iteration of the old elitist fantasy. The liberal establishment I am describing in this chapter is anti-populist not merely because it dislikes Donald Trump—who is in no way a genuine populist—but because it is populism’s opposite in nearly every particular. Its political ambition for the people is not to bring them together in a reform movement but to scold them, to shame them, and to teach them to defer to their superiors. It doesn’t seek to punish Wall Street or Silicon Valley; indeed, the same bunch that now rebukes and cancels and blacklists could not find a way to punish elite bankers after the global financial crisis back in 2009. This liberalism desires to merge with these institutions of private privilege, to enlist their power for what it imagines to be “good.

About a month before the handover of sovereignty, Joshua Paul, a young CPA staffer, typed up a joke on his computer and sent it to a few friends in the palace. The recipients forwarded it to their friends, who did the same thing. In less than a week, almost everyone in the Green Zone had seen it. QUESTION: Why did the Iraqi chicken cross the road? CPA: The fact that the chicken crossed the road shows that decision-making authority has switched to the chicken in advance of the scheduled June 30th transition of power. From now on, the chicken is responsible for its own decisions. HALLIBURTON: We were asked to help the chicken cross the road. Given the inherent risk of road crossing and the rarity of chickens, this operation will only cost $326,004. SHIITE CLERIC MOQTADA AL-SADR: The chicken was a tool of the evil Coalition and will be killed. U.S. ARMY MILITARY POLICE: We were directed to prepare the chicken to cross the road. As part of these preparations, individual soldiers ran over the chicken repeatedly and then plucked the chicken. We deeply regret the occurrence of any chicken-rights violations. PESHMERGA: The chicken crossed the road, and will continue to cross the road, to show its independence and to transport the weapons it needs to defend itself. However, in the future, to avoid problems, the chicken will be called a duck, and will wear a plastic bill. AL-JAZEERA: The chicken was forced to cross the road multiple times at gunpoint by a large group of occupation soldiers, according to witnesses. The chicken was then fired upon intentionally, in yet another example of the abuse of innocent Iraqi chickens. CIA: We cannot confirm or deny any involvement in the chicken-road-crossing incident. TRANSLATORS: Chicken he cross street because bad she tangle regulation. Future chicken table against my request.

Thou art my servant; I have chosen thee." Isaiah 41:9 If we have received the grace of God in our hearts, its practical effect has been to make us God's servants. We may be unfaithful servants, we certainly are unprofitable ones, but yet, blessed be his name, we are his servants, wearing his livery, feeding at his table, and obeying his commands. We were once the servants of sin, but he who made us free has now taken us into his family and taught us obedience to his will. We do not serve our Master perfectly, but we would if we could. As we hear God's voice saying unto us, "Thou art my servant," we can answer with David, "I am thy servant; thou hast loosed my bonds." But the Lord calls us not only his servants, but his chosen ones--"I have chosen thee." We have not chosen him first, but he hath chosen us. If we be God's servants, we were not always so; to sovereign grace the change must be ascribed. The eye of sovereignty singled us out, and the voice of unchanging grace declared, "I have loved thee with an everlasting love." Long ere time began or space was created God had written upon his heart the names of his elect people, had predestinated them to be conformed unto the image of his Son, and ordained them heirs of all the fulness of his love, his grace, and his glory. What comfort is here! Has the Lord loved us so long, and will he yet cast us away? He knew how stiffnecked we should be; he understood that our hearts were evil, and yet he made the choice. Ah! our Saviour is no fickle lover. He doth not feel enchanted for awhile with some gleams of beauty from his church's eye, and then afterwards cast her off because of her unfaithfulness. Nay, he married her in old eternity; and it is written of Jehovah, "He hateth putting away." The eternal choice is a bond upon our gratitude and upon his faithfulness which neither can disown.

How then do we recover from depression and despair? It is only by crying out to God and accepting His helping hands that are we able to overcome our greatest sorrows. When we finally choose to lay down our wills and surrender our complaints, trusting in His goodness, we permit Him to mold and work into us the very image of His son, Jesus Christ. Through our yielding to His sovereignty and by declaring His right to have His way in all things, without the slightest need for an explanation, we enter into an even deeper and more intimate walk.

Now this doctrine of hell, that has been such a comfort to my race, which so many ministers are pleading for, has been defended for ages-by the fathers of the church. Your preacher says that the sovereignty of God implies that he has an absolute, unlimited, and independent right to dispose of his creatures as he will, because he made them. Has he? Suppose I take this book and change it immediately into a servient human being. Would I have a right to torture it because I made it? No; on the contrary. I would say, having brought you into existence, it is my duty to do the best for you I can. They say God has a right to damn me because he made me. I deny it.

The combination of royal, aristocratic, and democratic power makes only a democracy.

When trying to convey God’s perspective on the establishment of human sovereignty in the form of dynastic monarchy, the author employed the following tone: I did not recommend that decision. It wasn’t the initial plan I had for you. Human kingship was your choice, which you insisted upon even after being warned. You wanted it and I couldn’t refuse you. So let us see how it unfolds, and what it means. And what will be my place in it. God’s ambivalence toward the political realm permeates the book with its nuanced and exploratory yet smolderingly critical force. Precisely because of its uncomfortable ambivalence, therefore, the Book of Samuel sets forth the proper attitude that should be assumed toward the political project as a whole. Illuminated from this systematically ambivalent stance, politics is seen as an overpowering human necessity that can never fully escape a potentially self-defeating betrayal at its very core.

One of my favorite arguments against Jesus was how do we know He really existed? How do we know that accounts of Jesus aren’t some carefully preserved legend? Then I recalled one of my favorite characters of history. Socrates was a Greek philosopher, but he left no writings behind when he died. In fact, the only proof we have that he ever lived at all is what others have told us about him! Even then, only Plato and one or two others, such as Aristophanes, the dramatist, and Xenophon, his great friend and admirer, tell us anything about him at all. Yet, we accept their story. But more than forty different men sat down and wrote about the greatness, the sovereignty and the power of God. And many men, writing separately, gave similar and non-contradictory accounts of Jesus Christ. Yet, I didn’t believe it.

Each year, month, and day is governed by a new, a special, providence of God

There are now many overgrown trails along the twenty-five years of the meandering research for this book, which began when I was a graduate student at the University of Pennsylvania.

Citizens were truly free when they could engage 'what is just and good without fear.' Liberty was therefore a positive act of will. Liberty was not an 'enemy of all authority' but 'a civil and moral' quality that made it possible for individuals, singly or in groups, to realize their potential. Tocqueville, who believed in the possibilities of human achievement, embraced the idea of liberty as capable of fostering equality. With liberty empowering individuals, equality could spread. There began the great challenge of modern history, that of balancing liberty and equality. Tocqueville kept arguing in successive formulations that the two concepts of liberty and equality, so easily at odds, actually touch and join. For one cannot be free without being equal to others; and one cannot be equal to others, in a positive sense, without being free. For Tocqueville, the combination of equality and liberty was the best possible human condition, while equality without liberty was among the worst, as he had argued in the prison report. Although Tocqueville asserted that equality and liberty ideally should be mutually reinforcing in democratic life, he recognized that men loved equality passionately but often resented the kind of demanding liberty that democracy required. It was simply too much work to set positive liberty in motion and sustain it. Indeed, Tocqueville underscored that 'nothing is harder than the apprenticeship of liberty.' As a result, Tocqueville charged, too many accept 'equality in servitude' (the result of leveling) and prefer it over the more demanding condition of 'inequality in freedom.' Only by acquiring the habit of liberty, Tocqueville argued throughout the book, could a democratic society make creative use of equality and liberty was the precondition for the dogma of popular sovereignty to 'emerge from the towns,' take possession of the government,' and become 'law of laws.

Before the foundation of the world, God inscribed the names of those predestined to believe in Christ in the Book of Life. This sacred register contains the names of all who will spend eternity with Him in heaven. Conversely, those whose names are not written in the Book of Life will face eternal separation from God in the lake of fire. The Book of Life is a testament to God's sovereignty and grace, a reminder that salvation is a gift bestowed upon those He has chosen from the beginning.

four lessons we can learn from the book of Job.12 Believe with all your heart in the absolute sovereignty of God. Pray that God would give you that conviction. Believe with all your heart that everything He does is right and good. Pray that God will give you that assurance. Repent of all the times you have questioned God or found fault with Him in the way He has treated you. Pray that God would humble you to see these murmurings as sinful. Be satisfied with the holy will of God and do not murmur.

The power to decide who is sovereign would signify a new sovereignty. A tribunal vested with such powers would constitute a supra-state and supra-sovereignty, which alone could create a new order if, for example, it had the authority to decide on the recognition of a new state. Not a Court of Justice but a League of Nations might have such pretensions. But in exercising them, it would become an independent agent. Together with the function of executing the law, managing an administration, etcetera (which might involve independence in financial affairs, budgeting, and other formalities), it would also signify something in and of itself. Its activity would not be limited to the application of existing legal norms, as would a tribunal that is an administrative authority. It would also be more than an arbiter, because in all decisive conflicts it would have to assert its own interests. Thus it would cease to uphold justice exclusively—in political terms, the status quo. If it took the constantly changing political situation as its guiding principle, it would have to decide on the basis of its own power what new order and what new state is or is not to be recognized. This could not be determined by the preexisting legal order, because most new states have come into being in opposition to the will of their formerly sovereign ruler. Owing to the rationale of self-assertion, it is conceivable that a conflict with the law might arise. Such a tribunal would not only represent the idea of impersonal justice but a powerful personality as well.

I believe that the broad sweep of the way in which prayer works in the Bible — and I’m thinking here of Jonah and the repentance of Nineveh — teaches us that God, in his sovereignty, has established a kind of contingency in the universe, and that God genuinely interacts with humans who pray in such a way that the universe changes as a result of our prayers.

When the text is examined in its full context of the chapter and rest of the Bible we discover a very different notion about God and gods. The phrase “I am, and there is none beside me” was an ancient Biblical slogan of incomparability of sovereignty, not exclusivity of existence. It was a way of saying that a certain authority was the most powerful compared to all other authorities. It did not mean that there were no other authorities that existed. We

We see this sloganeering in two distinct passages, one of the ruling power of Babylon claiming proudly in her heart, “I am, and there is no one beside me” (Isa. 47:8) and the other of the city of Nineveh boasting in her heart, “I am, and there is no one else” (Zeph. 2:15). The powers of Babylon and Nineveh are obviously not saying that there are no other powers or cities that exist beside them, because they had to conquer other cities and rule over them. In the same way, Yahweh uses that colloquial phrase, not to deny the existence of other gods, but to express his incomparable sovereignty over them.[3]

If we imagine creation to be something as simplistic as a utopian happy-go-lucky place where nothing ever will go wrong, we disparage the beauty and harmony illustrated in the Genesis stories. God’s goodness is not that shallow and neither is God’s creation. I wonder if there is not something immature about our desire for the garden to be perfect. Perfection is, in a sense, very naïve. It’s almost as naïve and problematic as believing that one action in Genesis 3 is supposed to upend God’s entire created order. These assumptions seem to reject the very sovereignty of God the book of Genesis is trying to show us. In contrast to the other Mesopotamian gods, the God of the Israelites is loving and good and intentional. All of creation finds its meaning within its relation to God.

So my prayer for this book is that God would stand forth and reassert his Creator-rights in our lives, and show us his crucified and risen Son who has all authority in heaven and on earth, and waken in us the strongest faith in the supremacy of Christ, and the deepest comforts in suffering, and the sweetest fellowship with Jesus that we have ever known.

Again, it is not simply the sheer number of executions or the population of death row that I underline here as problematic. As I will elaborate in this section, the mere presence of the death penalty—however few or many the number of executed may be in a given year—subverts popular sovereignty by anchoring the state’s claimed and so-called “right to kill.” If the symbol of “the executed God” generates opposition to the death penalty, as I hope to show by the end of this book, it is not simply because the gospel propounds an ethic of forgiveness of wrongdoers, setting a preference for mercy over and against lethal punishment (the usual Christian logic for abolishing the death penalty). The death penalty is opposed here more because the way of the cross is an adversarial practice of living that contests unjust modes of state rule; “unjust” because state execution violates popular sovereignty, chilling popular voice and expression, reinforcing the state’s unjust rule by terror.

We must also remember some of the key lessons of Scripture. In our weakness he is strong. He can use suffering to strengthen our character. He can use evil to accomplish good (precisely the nature of the discussion in the book of Habakkuk). God’s sovereignty is demonstrated in that whatever personal or nonpersonal agents do, God takes it and turns it to his purpose.

Unlike Euro-American philosophical notions of sovereignty, ea is based on the experiences of people on the land, relationships forged through the process of remembering and caring for wahi pana, storied places.5 In that vein, the essays in this book trace a genealogy of the contemporary Hawaiian sovereignty movement through the vigorous efforts of people trying to maintain or restore their relationships with specific lands.

February 3 MORNING “Therefore, brethren, we are debtors.” — Romans 8:12 AS God’s creatures, we are all debtors to Him: to obey Him with all our body, and soul, and strength. Having broken His commandments, as we all have, we are debtors to His justice, and we owe to Him a vast amount which we are not able to pay. But of the Christian it can be said that he does not owe God’s justice anything, for Christ has paid the debt His people owed; for this reason the believer owes the more to love. I am a debtor to God’s grace and forgiving mercy; but I am no debtor to His justice, for He will never accuse me of a debt already paid. Christ said, “It is finished!” and by that He meant, that whatever His people owed was wiped away for ever from the book of remembrance. Christ, to the uttermost, has satisfied divine justice; the account is settled; the handwriting is nailed to the cross; the receipt is given, and we are debtors to God’s justice no longer. But then, because we are not debtors to our Lord in that sense, we become ten times more debtors to God than we should have been otherwise. Christian, pause and ponder for a moment. What a debtor thou art to divine sovereignty! How much thou owest to His disinterested love, for He gave His own Son that He might die for thee. Consider how much you owe to His forgiving grace, that after ten thousand affronts He loves you as infinitely as ever. Consider what you owe to His power; how He has raised you from your death in sin; how He has preserved your spiritual life; how He has kept you from falling; and how, though a thousand enemies have beset your path, you have been able to hold on your way. Consider what you owe to His immutability. Though you have changed a thousand times, He has not changed once. Thou art as deep in debt as thou canst be to every attribute of God. To God thou owest thyself, and all thou hast — yield thyself as a living sacrifice, it is but thy reasonable service.

Most often the people in Exodus have contact with God by representative only; it is Moses who has the personal connection to and interaction with God, not the Israelite people, but he does so on their behalf, not his own. Exodus also shows how the high priest will represent the people in his actions of worship ritual so they can be assured of access to the (limited) presence of God and the benefits of that close proximity to eternal and universal sovereignty.52

Greece can balance its books without killing democracy Alexis Tsipras | 614 words OPINION Greece changes on January 25, the day of the election. My party, Syriza, guarantees a new social contract for political stability and economic security. We offer policies that will end austerity, enhance democracy and social cohesion and put the middle class back on its feet. This is the only way to strengthen the eurozone and make the European project attractive to citizens across the continent. We must end austerity so as not to let fear kill democracy. Unless the forces of progress and democracy change Europe, it will be Marine Le Pen and her far-right allies that change it for us. We have a duty to negotiate openly, honestly and as equals with our European partners. There is no sense in each side brandishing its weapons. Let me clear up a misperception: balancing the government’s budget does not automatically require austerity. A Syriza government will respect Greece’s obligation, as a eurozone member, to maintain a balanced budget, and will commit to quantitative targets. However, it is a fundamental matter of democracy that a newly elected government decides on its own how to achieve those goals. Austerity is not part of the European treaties; democracy and the principle of popular sovereignty are. If the Greek people entrust us with their votes, implementing our economic programme will not be a “unilateral” act, but a democratic obligation. Is there any logical reason to continue with a prescription that helps the disease metastasise? Austerity has failed in Greece. It crippled the economy and left a large part of the workforce unemployed. This is a humanitarian crisis. The government has promised the country’s lenders that it will cut salaries and pensions further, and increase taxes in 2015. But those commitments only bind Antonis Samaras’s government which will, for that reason, be voted out of office on January 25. We want to bring Greece to the level of a proper, democratic European country. Our manifesto, known as the Thessaloniki programme, contains a set of fiscally balanced short-term measures to mitigate the humanitarian crisis, restart the economy and get people back to work. Unlike previous governments, we will address factors within Greece that have perpetuated the crisis. We will stand up to the tax-evading economic oligarchy. We will ensure social justice and sustainable growth, in the context of a social market economy. Public debt has risen to a staggering 177 per cent of gross domestic product. This is unsustainable; meeting the payments is very hard. On existing loans, we demand repayment terms that do not cause recession and do not push the people to more despair and poverty. We are not asking for new loans; we cannot keep adding debt to the mountain. The 1953 London Conference helped Germany achieve its postwar economic miracle by relieving the country of the burden of its own past errors. (Greece was among the international creditors who participated.) Since austerity has caused overindebtedness throughout Europe, we now call for a European debt conference, which will likewise give a strong boost to growth in Europe. This is not an exercise in creating moral hazard. It is a moral duty. We expect the European Central Bank itself to launch a full-blooded programme of quantitative easing. This is long overdue. It should be on a scale great enough to heal the eurozone and to give meaning to the phrase “whatever it takes” to save the single currency. Syriza will need time to change Greece. Only we can guarantee a break with the clientelist and kleptocratic practices of the political and economic elites. We have not been in government; we are a new force that owes no allegiance to the past. We will make the reforms that Greece actually needs. The writer is leader of Syriza, the Greek oppositionparty

While this book makes a similar if more modest claim for the social significance of its own fundamentally ambivalent “sentiments of disenchantment” (an ambivalence demonstrated by the fact that all are mobilized as easily by the political right as by the left, as the histories of disgust and paranoia illustrate so well), it is useful to recall that with notable exceptions like Hobbes or Niccolò Machiavelli, who made fear central to their theories of modern sovereignty and the state, it is the discourse of philosophical aesthetics, rather than that of political philosophy or economy, in which emotions have traditionally played the most pivotal role—from Longinus to Immanuel Kant on the sublime (perhaps the first “ugly” or explicitly nonbeautiful feeling appearing in theories of aesthetic judgment), to the twentieth-century mutation of this affect I describe in my chapter on stuplimity.

This illustrates the working of all false religions. They originate in man’s desire to exalt himself above God, but they result in degrading man [287] below the brute. Every religion that wars against the sovereignty of God defrauds man of the glory which was his at the creation, and which is to be restored to him in Christ. Every false religion teaches its adherents to be careless of human needs, sufferings, and rights. The gospel places a high value upon humanity as the purchase of the blood of Christ, and it teaches a tender regard for the wants and woes of man. The Lord says, “I will make a man more precious than fine gold; even a man than the golden wedge of Ophir.” Isaiah 13:12. When

Sovereign 17 wants no sovereignty.

The story told by all four gospels is the story of ‘how God became king’: not by the usual means of military revolution, but by the inauguration of sovereignty during Jesus’ public career, and the strange but decisive victory on the cross itself.

The true sickness in a man’s heart is pride. Pride justifies wrongdoing and conceals the truth . . . even from a man’s own self. Every person is a leper on the inside, Peniel. That is the condition of each soul trying to live outside God’s sovereignty and purpose. What you see on the outside of the people of Mak’ob is an image of what’s inside everyone.

The ultimate agenda was to use such a staged attack to justify major countries such as the U.S. giving up their national sovereignty to a one-world government, which would be secretly controlled by the Antarctic Germans and their Draconian allies.

As I wrote this book, though, I realized that m joy at these two inheritances came at other people’s expense; that the land that allowed the Chickasaws to become two of the wealthiest and most influential tribes in Oklahoma came from other Native peoples who previously had lived upon it; that the land that allowed my family and hundreds of others in Indian Territory to become Black property owners was part of the broader theft of Indian land that also led to the loss of much Native sovereignty, culture, and language. I characterize the different protagonists that populate my book as settlers because my perspective as their descendant has helped me to see how their freedoms and opportunities were begotten by impeding the freedoms and opportunities of others. The sources I’ve analyzed demonstrate that my ancestors’ involvement and investment in this settler colonial process made their lives subtly easier and helped them survive. They were in difficult circumstances—forced migrations across oceans and across lands—but they were not forced to use the specific language and actions they chose. Though they were limited by their circumstances, as we all are, they actively chose their path in the midst of a myriad of difficult decisions. I few looked at just this, would it not be clear? Would we not consider them settlers? Reconciling divergent histories has granted me another way of looking at these peoples and places: a as heightened example of how oppressed people can oppress other people—no matter how trite that may seem.

Human responsibility is the necessary corollary of divine sovereignty.

A testament to just how little sovereignty actually mattered to the average citizen. The baker rose before dawn to make his bread, and so long as the flour delivery arrived, he had no care for the land on which the grain was grown or which flag fluttered above it. The truth of it bore down on Artemio as though he were the cobbles beneath the carriage. They didn’t care. None of them cared. The wars and manipulation and ceaseless effort that the nobility put into ruling meant as little to them as the rain a continent away. They saw no further than their next meal.

Philosophy is a global view and it cannot be judged only in the cup of sovereignties.

This is known as compatibilism, the idea that God’s meticulous sovereignty is compatible with human freedom and responsibility.16 God is the remote but primary (ultimate) cause of all human actions as the transcendent Author of those actions. Conversely, we are the immediate but secondary cause of all our actions. Examples from Scripture could be multiplied, but statements from the book of Proverbs will suffice: “The heart of man plans his way, but the LORD establishes his steps” (Prov. 16:9). “Many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the LORD that will stand” (19:21). “The king’s heart is a stream of water in the hand of the LORD; he turns it wherever he will” (21:1).

The book Living in Indigenous Sovereignty, by Elizabeth Carlson-Manathara and Gladys Rowe, is a collection of essays and interviews written by settlers who are working through what it means to become kin,

Brendan McMahan HomeMy Books Browse ▾ Community ▾ Find Quotes Results for "J.R.Nyquist" Showing 161-167 of 167 (0.02 seconds) “This brief overview of our situation does not lend itself to an optimistic forecast. Too many of our fellow citizens, year after year, have hidden themselves in the “riskless private sphere,” resting on the safe possession of their “private property,” staying out of political controversies, yielding political ground to increasingly pathological narratives and persons. At long last this “riskless private sphere” is no longer safe. The exits have been blocked. A confrontation is now unavoidable.” ― J.R. Nyquist tags: ayn-rand, libertarianism 0 likes in my quotes “There is a silver lining to all this, according to Jean Bodin. If an insurrection fails, its poison is purged from the body politic. A deluded mob can be cured once its ringleaders are apprehended. And who are these ringleaders, in truth? At beginning of Bodin’s book, On Sovereignty, there is a listing of principles necessary to a well-ordered commonwealth. The cornerstone of these principles might surprise you. In the first place, wrote Bodin, right ordering involves distinguishing “a commonwealth from a band of thieves or pirates. With them one should have neither intercourse, commerce, nor alliance.” ― J.R. Nyquist tags: ayn-rand, libertarianism 0 likes in my quotes “Since most whites are ashamed of America’s past treatment of blacks, they are susceptible to “white guilt.” This guilt is now being exploited to advance a communist agenda, as opposed to the color-blind agenda envisioned by conservatives. The political significance of this cannot be underestimated. According to Trevor Loudon, the organizations behind today’s revolutionary unrest are Maoist; that is, they are ideologically allied with the Chinese Communists in Beijing.

The solution they propose is to have all independent nation-states surrender their national sovereignty to a global government.

The war would put billions of dollars in the pockets of corrupt people and reduce the global population. A post-war global community would be established that prohibited international borders and eliminated national sovereignty. The world’s population would be easily controlled, having been massively reduced by the devastation of war.

Ua mau ke ea ο ka ‘āina i ka pono” (roughly, “The sovereignty of the land has been continued because it is pono”), which became the mō’ī’s motto. It later became the motto of the kingdom, and then (strangely or perversely) was appropriated as the motto of the State of Hawai‘i, where it is usually translated as “The life of the land is perpetuated in righteousness.” “Ea,” which can mean “life” or “breath” as well as “sovereignty,” in its original context was clearly meant to signify sovereignty.

Absolute sovereignty is what I love to ascribe to God. But my first conviction was not so.

There is a silver lining to all this, according to Jean Bodin. If an insurrection fails, its poison is purged from the body politic. A deluded mob can be cured once its ringleaders are apprehended. And who are these ringleaders, in truth? At beginning of Bodin’s book, On Sovereignty, there is a listing of principles necessary to a well-ordered commonwealth. The cornerstone of these principles might surprise you. In the first place, wrote Bodin, right ordering involves distinguishing “a commonwealth from a band of thieves or pirates. With them one should have neither intercourse, commerce, nor alliance.

[O]h, how many tyrants there would be if it were lawful to kill them! He who taxes too heavily would be a tyrant, as the vulgar understand it; he who gives commands that the people do not like would be a tyrant, as Aristotle defined a tyrant in the Politics; he who maintains guards for his security would be a tyrant; he who punishes conspirators against his rule would be a tyrant. How then should good princes be secure in their lives?

...we must understand God's love in light of God's freedom. As we have seen in this book, God, as the Creator, is free to do whatever He sees best. He is compelled by none other than Himself. And God's freedom means--though it's difficult to swallow--that God can withhold love (Rom. 9). It's a logical (and theological) mistake to think that God can't be loving unless He saves everyone. Such an assumption, while seeking to cherish the love of God, violates His freedom and sovereignty.

Christ will have none of this in his revelation to John. The first three chapters of Revelation set forth the seeming paradox of the sovereignty of the Lord of the church and the human responsibility of his people. This has often been a problem to Christians. How can God be absolutely sovereign at the same time as man is absolutely responsible? Surely the one cancels out the other. The attempts to resolve the paradox by either diluting God’s sovereignty or by curtailing man’s responsibility are the attempts of the sinful mind of man to dictate the truth about God on the basis of human reason. The Christian mind is informed and renewed by the gospel, though even Christians go on bringing non-Christian ways of thinking to the problems of the Bible. The truth of the matter, as always, is in the gospel. The problem of sovereignty and responsibility is the problem of how a truly sovereign God can go on being truly sovereign while relating to truly responsible man. The gospel does not solve the problem in the sense of telling us how in a way that is able to be fully understood by the human mind. Rather it shows us that the mystery is characteristic of God himself. For in the gospel we see the incomprehensible has happened: true sovereign God and true responsible man have united in the one person Jesus Christ. In the history of the early church we can see how Christians grappled with this mystery. But every time they were tempted to solve the mystery either by reducing the deity of Christ to fit in logically with his humanity, or vice versa, the result was a destruction of the gospel itself. Orthodox Christianity learned to live with the mystery and indeed, to glory in it. Jesus Christ was true God in union with true man in such a way that neither nature was diminished by the other nor confused with it.

God sometimes allows evil to run its course, or much of its course, to expose its degradation; he is forbearing, leaving much time for repentance; he may have his own reasons, largely hidden, as in the book of Job. But always he is God, and his sovereignty is never truncated.

Times have changed, and international laws and norms surrounding belligerency are far less permissive than they were in the early twentieth century. While this means that weak states have greater protection available to them from predatory neighbours, it also enables the survival of states and institutions that are not necessarily well adapted to their environment. The sovereignty – and sometimes territorial and fiscal integrity – of weak states is guaranteed to a significant degree by external sources, which can undermine the need for robust internal sources, such as popular legitimacy, or a productive economy.

book’s central themes: the essential ambiguity of political motivation and political action, the inherent pettiness of the power game, the tendency for political power, once attained, to be redirected toward retaining political power, the ruler’s need to manipulate his public image, the centrality of blame-avoidance and blame-shifting to the exercise of sovereignty, how the possession of great power affects the ends that power wielders pursue, and the way power tends to imprison those who most ardently seek it.

Freedom thus depends on collective action rather than individual will, and this is what makes it political. Though freedom is, by account, a relational practice, it is not a zero-sum game in which the more one has, the less another can enjoy. Freedom considered as a matter of individual self-determination or self-sovereignty is reduced to a solipsistic phenomenon. Rather, as a world-building practice, freedom is a social--and hence necessarily political--endeavor.

Moreover, in the exercise of His sovereignty God never enforces the responsibility of the creature; and unless we keep both of these steadily in view, we not only become lopsided, but lapse into real error. The grace of God must not be magnified to the beclouding of His righteousness, nor His sovereignty pressed to the exclusion of human accountability.

He is announcing to the most powerful ruler of the ancient world that these people may be your slaves but they are My children. The story of the exodus is as much political as theological. Theologically, the plagues showed that the Creator of nature is supreme over the forces of nature. Politically it declared that over every human power stands the sovereignty of God, defender and guarantor of the rights of humankind.

wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.” We can surrender our children’s safety to his sovereignty. He created them, and before one of their days came to be, he had ordained the whole of their life. God entrusted us with them, and now we need to entrust them to God. We need not fear what will happen to our children. God has ordained the whole of their lives. All we have to do is love them, guide them, and trust the one who loves them even more than we do.

Their greatest folly is that they don't understand you or your kinfolk. They cannot imagine that you would refuse being their vassal on the throne. They have no inkling that there are races of man that value sovereignty above the air they breathe. Like a puppet they expect you to approve and sign whatever policy put before you, bulking as they presume and barbarian would confronted with the daily administrative minutiae of rulership- along with the flowery jargon they'll use to disguise their schemes. And soon, drowning in woman and wine, your senses dulled from that stuporous escape- they'll have you unwittingly dismantle the Varangian guard before burying a dagger in your back" - Almuric Agricola Excerpt from Varangian: Book One of the Byzantum Saga

The Enlightenment has been argued to provide the vehicle of imperial domination, buttress empire, inaugurate the exploratory verve that opened to its voracious agrarian enterprises and ambitious scientific projects, shape the dispositions of empire’s practitioners, preen imperial arrogance, prime anticolonial nationalist movements, and, not least, animate and justify the toxic mix of coercive and curative interventions and reforms that have served the installation of European sovereignties across the globe. The notion of “Enlightenment-as-imperialism” and the “epistemic violence” that fusion enabled (as Gayatri Spivak has charged) have dominated scholarship over the past few decades, just as its imaginary is said to have once instrumentally colonized so much of the world.5

what are the effects of Victorian India providing the quintessential form of imperial sovereignty when such stark evidence should lead to other sites and in other directions? What imperial history is being rehearsed with this model in mind when more gradated forms of sovereignty have been equally effective and pervasive (think of Morocco, Palestine, Puerto Rico, and Vieques) and make up not the exception to imperial governance but such a widespread norm?

Yet, like many, I was weaned on a linear, step-by-step discipleship model. I attended a new believers’ class designed to teach the basics of theology and how to develop a personal walk with God.(Apparently, every new Christian needed a good grasp of the Trinity, the inspiration of Scripture, the basics of the atonement, the sovereignty of God, and a few other things I can’t remember.) And oh yeah, we also needed to learn how to share our faith and get started with a personal quiet time. Though it had almost nothing to do with the stuff new Christians actually struggle with—casting aside sinful habits and cleaning up our act—we were provided with a classy binder to put our notes in.

I create Stendhal; I am Stendhal while reading him. But that is because first he knew how to bring me to dwell within him. The reader's sovereignty is only imaginary, since he draws all his force from that infernal machine called the book, the apparatus for making significations. The relations between the reader and the book are like those loves in which one partner initially dominates because he was more proud or more temperamental, and then the situation changes and the other, more wise and more silent, rules. The expressive moment occurs where the relationship reverses itself, where the book takes possession of the reader.

*IT IS LIKE SUN RAYS. EVERY RAY HAS THE QUALITY OF THE SUN - INTENSE HEAT, POWER, ENERGY, LIGHT - BUT NOT JUST ONE RAY BUT MULTIDIMENSIONAL RAYS! *PARAMASHIVA’S CONSCIOUS SOVEREIGNTY IS MULTIDIMENSIONAL.

The law of Kia is its own arbiter, beyond necessitation, who can grasp the nameless Kia? Obvious but unintelligible, without form, its design most excellent. Its wish for superabundance, who can assert its mysterious purpose? By our knowledge it becomes more obscure, more remote, and our faith-opacity. Without attribute, I know not its name. How free it is, it has no need of sovereignty! (Kingdoms are their own despoilers.) Without lineage, who dare claim relationship? Without virtue, how pleasing in its moral self-love! How mighty is it, in its assertion of "Need not be-Does not matter!

We find on the contrary that the millennial reign of Christ will be the manifestation in history of the lordship and sovereignty which is his already.

Giants in Jeans Sonnet 75 Nonduality comes from wholeness, Wholeness rises when sectarianism is slashed. Sectarianism fails when we fall in love, Not with one person but the whole world. When the stranger becomes family, Politicians will lose their job. When love overwhelms all rigidity, Arms dealers will mourn and sob. When diplomacy keeps the world divided, Reliance on institutions goes through the roof. The best way to sustain profits of war, Is to keep people infected with the nationalist flu. Enough with this barbarianism of sovereignty! Step up and shout, the whole world is my family!

Guide our steps to walk in holiness and righteousness and singleness of heart, and to do those things that are good and acceptable in Thy sight, and in the sight of our rulers. Yes, Lord, cause Thy face to shine upon us in peace for our good, that we may be sheltered by Thy mighty hand and delivered from every sin by Thine outstretched arm. Deliver us from those who hate us wrongfully. Give concord and peace to us and to all who dwell on earth, as Thou didst to our fathers, when they called on Thee in faith and truth with holiness, while we render obedience to Thine almighty and most excellent name, and to our earthly rulers and governors. Thou, O Lord and Master, hast given them the power of sovereignty through Thine excellent and unspeakable might, that we, knowing the glory and honour which Thou hast given them, may submit ourselves to them, in nothing resisting Thy will. Grant them therefore, O Lord, health, peace, concord and stability, that they may without failure administer the government which Thou hast committed to them. For Thou, O heavenly Master, King of the ages, dost give to the sons of men glory and honour and power over all things that are in the earth. Do Thou, O Lord, direct their counsel according to what is good and acceptable in Thy sight, that they, administering in peace and gentleness with godliness the power which Thou hast committed to them, may obtain Thy favour.1

Ask most people, “Why would you go to heaven?” and if the person believes in heaven, a safe bet is that the answer will be, “Because I’ve tried my best to be a good person.” One arrives at this common answer because of a combination of three basic Pelagian concepts: 1. Freedom is defined as independence from God’s sovereignty. 2. Original sin is rejected; we are all born good. Sin is only in the act of the will. 3. Grace as unmerited favor from God is rejected, ignored, or unknown. The combination of these three results in personal morality as the basis for salvation. But this must be rejected, as it is clear from Scripture that “[t]here is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands; there is no one who seeks God” (Rom. 3:10 – 11). This is because of original sin, as Paul writes, for “just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned” (Rom. 5:12).

young,

The more we learn to pray, the more we learn to surrender, trust, and have confidence in God’s sovereignty over our circumstances. 1 John 5:14 reads, “And this is the confidence we have toward Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.” It goes on to read, “And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of Him” (1 Jn. 5:15). See, it’s when we’re not praying that we are filled with discontent and insecurity about the future of our lives and those we love. Praying builds in us a tough type of God-confidence. We learn to be confident that he’s given us and those we love what he knows is best for us right now. Because we are human, our eyes don’t allow us to see the eternal implications of each part of our lives. But we can trust God is working all things together for the good of those who love him and are called according to his purpose (Rom. 8:28). We can trust his plans and the timing of those plans.

The more we learn to pray, the more we learn to surrender, trust, and have confidence in God’s sovereignty over our circumstances. 1 John 5:14 reads, “And this is the confidence we have toward Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.” It goes on to read, “And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of Him” (1 Jn. 5:15).

We Christians today need to get into the book of Hebrews. I thank God that, under His sovereignty, there was such a group of staggering Hebrew Christians in the first century. Without them, the book of Hebrews probably never would have come into existence. Do not think that the book of Hebrews was only for them. We need this book today much more than they needed it in their time. In the past eleven messages we have been on chapters seven, eight, and nine. If I were to ask you to write a conclusion to these chapters, you may find it quite difficult. But at the end of chapter nine the book of Hebrews itself gives us a summary, a conclusion, of these three chapters. This conclusion is the very matter which we shall cover in this message—Christ’s two manifestations and the interval between them. These three things, Christ’s two manifestations and the interval, compose God’s economy.

God is God when things work out perfectly and He remains God when things are jagajaga.