about what is possible for God to do in relationship to the human will and they see one verse

that suggests another possibility and they say this verse can't be that can't mean that or

we'll take it right out of the Bible so what we're going to do is begin with general statements about God's providence over the nations.

General statements about God's providence, then we'll move to specific statements about God's providence over particular nations.

And then I want to look at some larger portions of scripture rather than just isolated texts, and we'll wind up, I hope,

or I'll get this illustration in here and others along the way

about the impact upon missions today of God's providence over the nation.

So what we'll do first is look at some individual texts,

and I'll pause here and there and see if you have any questions about these,

but they're pretty straightforward,

and let them have their effect upon your worldview now.

Because you won't read this in the newspaper.

These are more important truths than are ever reported in the newspaper or on television,

and yet you'll never hear these.

It shows how tremendously skewed reality is in the way it's presented for most Americans.

And since most Americans don't absorb the Bible from any source,

they are constantly inundated by a skewed source of reality

in education and media and entertainment.

Job 12.23.

God makes the nations great, then destroys them.

He enlarges the nations and then leads them away.

This is a theme we're going to see over and over again of God being the one who brings nations into being,

...