Questions for discussion follow the post along with helps for answering them.
Revelation 4:1-11
After this I looked, and behold, a door standing open in heaven! And the first voice, which I had heard speaking to me like a trumpet, said, “Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after this.” 2 At once I was in the Spirit, and behold, a throne stood in heaven, with one seated on the throne. 3 And he who sat there had the appearance of jasper and carnelian, and around the throne was a rainbow that had the appearance of an emerald. 4 Around the throne were twenty-four thrones, and seated on the thrones were twenty-four elders, clothed in white garments, with golden crowns on their heads. 5 From the throne came flashes of lightning, and rumblings and peals of thunder, and before the throne were burning seven torches of fire, which are the seven spirits of God, 6 and before the throne there was as it were a sea of glass, like crystal.
And around the throne, on each side of the throne, are four living creatures, full of eyes in front and behind: 7 the first living creature like a lion, the second living creature like an ox, the third living creature with the face of a man, and the fourth living creature like an eagle in flight. 8 And the four living creatures, each of them with six wings, are full of eyes all around and within, and day and night they never cease to say,
“Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty,
who was and is and is to come!”
9 And whenever the living creatures give glory and honor and thanks to him who is seated on the throne, who lives forever and ever, 10 the twenty-four elders fall down before him who is seated on the throne and worship him who lives forever and ever. They cast their crowns before the throne, saying,
11 “Worthy are you, our Lord and God,
to receive glory and honor and power,
for you created all things,
and by your will they existed and were created.”
--
By God’s own estimation, Job was a blameless man. God declared him upright and one who fears God and turns away from evil. But when Job couldn’t make sense of the suffering that he and his family faced, he lamented in tears “Where is my hope?” (Job 17:15). His friends brought council, each trying their best to assess the situation Job faced and offer guidance based upon their own life experiences and wisdom, but none of their words satisfied. In fact, their words only exasperated Job’s confusion and frustration. Job said to them “Look at me and be appalled and lay your hand over your mouth” (Job 21:5). Job felt such despair that he cried out to God that he wished he’d never been born (Job 10:18-19). And, so when God finally spoke to Job from the heavens, what is that He said to answer Job in his despair? What did God say to bring order to Job’s confused thoughts? What did He proclaim that was greater than anything man’s wisdom could conceive? What words did He utter to comfort Job in His affliction?
God thundered: “Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge? Dress for action like a man; I will question you, and you make it known to me. Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me if you have understanding. Who determined its measurements- surely you know!” And for four long chapters in the book of Job, God confronts Job with declarations of His own power, majesty and authority over all things. “Who is he who can stand before me?” God asks. “Who has given to me, that I should repay him? Whatever is under the whole heaven is mine” (Job 41:10).
Over the last several studies, we have read in chapters 2 and 3 of the struggles that the 7 churches in Asia were facing. We considered the fact that persecution was rampant and the pressure to compromise was strong. And now, in chapter 4, we come to the letter proper from which all these churches were to gain comfort and encouragement to persevere in the face of this persecution. And, like with Job, the message is not what we have been led to expect. We expect, perhaps even demand, that God make sense of things. That He, first, bring words of sympathy and sorrow over our plight. That He agree with us that life is just not fair. In our boldest, if not most foolish of moments, we might even expect to hear God say that He is “sorry” for what we and our families have had to endure.
But when God does finally break through the dark clouds that overshadow us in order to give us a message, not of what we want to hear, but what we need to hear, what we receive is something altogether different. We receive a vision that declares: God is All Powerful, He is Holy, He is worthy of Glory and Honor and Power, He created all things, It was by His will that they were created and continue to have their being…and He sits on His throne…In other words God is Sovereign over all things. He is LORD.
The words of the four living creatures and the elders make clear the point of the vision that John is receiving in Chapter 4, but also, we might say, the point of the entire book of Revelation.
Holy, Holy, Hoy, is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come!
Worthy are you, our Lord and god, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created.
And so for churches that were living out their faith in times that felt so uncertain, when walls seem to be closing in upon them, when faith in Christ could cost them everything…the church needed a call to boldness, a call to confidence, a call to hope. And this is what God had to say to them.
It was true for them as it was with Job. And so it is today. These words are as relevant to us as they were to their original recipients and the message is the same. Whatever struggle it is you are facing, whatever confusion you may be experiencing, whatever problem it is that you are seeking to solve, this is God’s answer. We are so often, however, like Job and his friends. We seek counsel in man’s wisdom. If our immediate family or friends can’t make sense of the situation, certainly someone out there has written a book that can. And so, a steady stream of books from Amazon keeps landing in our mailboxes.
Solomon seemed to foresee this saying in Ecclesiastes 12:12: “Of making books there is no end, and much study is a weariness of the flesh.” Listen to what he says next: “The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every deed into judgment with every secret thing, whether good or evil.” In other words, put down the book and cast your eyes upon the throne of God. Recognize that He is sovereign over all. He will bring all that burdens you- both secret and known- under His judgment. The call upon you is to trust Him and follow His Word. And I read these words as someone is a bit of a bibliophile. I love books. But I must receive this rebuke. God told Job “the hope of man is false” and so the call is to be sure that my hope is derived more from facts coming from the God who is Sovereign and sits over and above our world, more than from the musings of people who are a part of it, are shaped by it and are limited in their ability to understand things from God’s perspective. And so when we turn our eyes upward, what do we see?
4:1 “After this I looked, and behold, a door standing open in heaven! And the first voice, which I had heard speaking to me like a trumpet, said, “Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after this.”
The door standing open is signifying that John is being given access to that which had been unseen by human eyes and the voice who calls to him to walk through the door is the voice of Christ Himself. He says “I will show you what must take place after this.” In Ezekiel 1 and 2, The prophet Ezekiel was told by the LORD “stand on your feet and I will speak with you.” And Ezekiel said, “And he spoke to me the Spirit entered into me and set me on my feet.” The vision Ezekiel saw was of four living creatures with the faces of lion, ox, eagle and human, there was fire and lightning, the sound as of rushing waters. Besides each creature there were wheels covered with eyes. Above them there was a throne with One seated upon it, a rainbow surrounding it. In Isaiah 6, we have Isaiah who saw the Lord sitting upon His throne. Above him stood the seraphim calling to one another “Holy, Holy, Holy, is the LORD of hosts; the whole world is full of his glory!” And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke. In both instances, God’s people living as exiles in Babylon are being confronted with the glory of God as they long for a relief from their suffering and a return to the promised land.
Now here in Revelation, God’s people who, as we saw in 1 Peter, are exiles on this earth longing for the eternal land of promise are confronted with the same vision. What do we see?
2 At once I was in the Spirit, and behold, a throne stood in heaven, with one seated on the throne. 3 And he who sat there had the appearance of jasper and carnelian, and around the throne was a rainbow that had the appearance of an emerald.
The first thing we notice is that John never describes God Himself but only His glory. Ezekiel described it as “gleaming metal, as of fire all around…a brightness all around him.” John describes it as jasper and carnelian. Jasper is again mentioned in chapter 21:11 as being clear as crystal and is likened to the glory of God in its brilliance. Carnelian is a stone that is reddish orange in color perhaps reflecting the purifying fire that Ezekiel saw.
Then we have a rainbow surrounding the throne. There are two things that we might take from its presence. 1) When is the rainbow first mentioned in Scripture? After the flood when God had wiped out the old creation to make way for a new start. And so here, the rainbow may symbolize, once again, that we are being given witness to the beginning of a new creation. 2) The rainbow was also a sign of God’s mercy even as He is judge. Consider what a rainbow symbolizes. Perhaps you have never thought of this. We use the term “rainbow.” But what God says to Noah is “I set my bow in the clouds.” What kind of bow? Moses in singing a song of God’s glory describes Him as saying of His enemies: “‘I will heap disasters upon them; I will spend my arrows on them,” (Deut. 32:23). The “bow” that God sat down in the clouds, is the bow from which He let His arrows of judgment fly against all flesh on the earth excepting those in the ark. He sets the bow down and says, “I will not do it in that way again.”
So here in this vision the bow reminds us of God’s power of judgment and yet His mercy to those who are His own.
4:4 Around the throne were twenty-four thrones, and seated on the thrones were twenty-four elders, clothed in white garments, with golden crowns on their heads.
As for the 24 elders, there is much debate over who these are- even what they are. Are they angelic or are they human? Why 24? That certainly seems like it would be a clue as to their identity. Some argue that 24 comes from King David’s organization of the servants of the temple into twenty-four orders of priests (1 Chron. 24:3–19), twenty-four Levitical gatekeepers (26:17–19), and twenty-four orders of Levites commissioned to “prophesy in giving thanks and praising the Lord.” And so, they represent OT priestly saints. Others argue that 24 comes from the 12 tribes of Israel and 12 apostles- meaning that these are those who represent the people of God throughout the history of redemption. Noticing that they are clothed in white garments and have crowns and sitting on thrones- some of the very things that were promised to the churches in chapters 2 and 3 that they would receive if they were to overcome, it seems to me that, since the church is a priesthood of believers, that it is a combination of each of these. The 24 representing our priestly status, the clothing representing that we are overcomers through Christ. This gives a picture of the hope that belongs to all God’s people- OT and NT- who are overcomers through faith. While the world sees us as weak and foolish and on the defensive, this is the truth of the matter. Isn’t this what Paul tells us in Ephesians 2:6 when he says that by grace we have been saved and that God “raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.” That is the true state of things and what is pictured here.
4:5 From the throne came flashes of lightning, and rumblings and peals of thunder, and before the throne were burning seven torches of fire, which are the seven spirits of God, 6 and before the throne there was as it were a sea of glass, like crystal.
The seven torches we know from our study of Revelation chapter 1 is imagery from Zechariah 4 representing the Holy Spirit- here referred to as 7 “Spirits” but likely referring to His perfection and universal presence. Notice that the sea is still as glass. Why is this mentioned? The seas of the earth were considered by mankind to be places of chaos, storms, where sea dragons dwelt. Here they are calm and still. What is the point? Well, what are the areas in your life where you feel that chaos reigns? Where the storms rage? Where dragons are lurking seeking to devour you? Stop for a minute now, and think on this, even close your eyes if you need to. You see the storm and the waves, yet the throne of God sits upon that very sea and it is calm. As still as glass. What is the Holy Spirit saying to you right now about the true condition of your situation? Who is in control?
In Matthew 8 when the disciples were with Jesus in a boat on the sea and a great storm arose to the point that the boat was being swamped with waves, the disciples said “We are perishing!” but Jesus was sleeping through it all. Who had the right perspective on the reality of things? Not the appearance, but the reality? When the disciples woke Jesus up, he asked them, “Why are you afraid, O you of little faith?” Then he rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm. What was his message? “I shouldn’t have had to make the waves stop in order for you to rest. The threat was mere appearance, the reality was what you saw in me.”
4:6 And around the throne, on each side of the throne, are four living creatures, full of eyes in front and behind: 7 the first living creature like a lion, the second living creature like an ox, the third living creature with the face of a man, and the fourth living creature like an eagle in flight. 8 And the four living creatures, each of them with six wings, are full of eyes all around and within, and day and night they never cease to say, “Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come!”
As with the elders, how we are to understand the four living creatures is a matter of debate. It is clear that they are the same creatures as we find in Ezekiel 1 and Isaiah 6 even though we find some differences in their descriptions – for example in Ezekiel each one has all four faces- in Revelation they each only have one- and that is a helpful reminder to us moving forward that Revelation is a record of visions in which the finer details may vary depending upon what the particular vision is intended to convey.
Why 4? The number 4 usually represented the earth- we might think of the 4 corners of the earth, we read of the 4 winds of the earth in Scripture, we think of the 4 directions North ,South, East, and West…and so now we have these four creatures with them having the faces of what were commonly seen as the highest of the order of God’s created beings- the lion the king of beasts, the ox- the mightiest of cattle, the eagle- the swiftest of birds, and then humankind. They represent the whole of the world’s created order. They are performing the function that all creation is meant to fulfill. They bring glory to God.
In addition to representing creation, the cherubim also represent the Creator. The multitude of eyes in the living beings signifies divine omniscience and that they are God’s agents and reminds us that God knows. He knows whatever it is that you are facing.
As noted earlier, the hymns in these verses give us the point of the whole vision. They tell us that God is holy, He is sovereign over creation, and He is worthy to be praised, worshiped, and glorified.
1. God Is Holy. To be “holy” is to be separate. God is high above and separate from all that is not God. We can gain great comfort from this doctrine in many ways. One that we don’t often think of is how God explains what His holiness means in Hosea 11:9: “I am God and not man, the Holy One in your midst.” How important is it to know that God’s holiness means that He is not man? That He is separate from mankind in terms of how He thinks and acts? God does not follow man’s lead. He does not care about man’s opinions. He is “High and lifted up” above all that this world declares true. So, one application is that man’s opinion of you does not reflect God’s opinion of you. Is that important to know? Man’s actions do not control you. His holiness means He is unique and what He thinks and does is not determined by anyone.
2. That brings us to the fact that, secondly, God Is Sovereign “A throne stood in heaven with one seated on the throne.” While the world seems like it is pulling apart at the seams, the LORD sits. And he sits on a throne. The LORD asked Job “Who shut in the sea….and said “Thus far shall you come and no farther, and here shall your proud waves be stayed?” (Job 8:8,11). God is sovereign over all. That includes nature, that includes human history, that includes you. He continues, asking of Job “Will you even put me in the wrong, Will you condemn me that you may be in the right?” (Job 40:8). We make a mistake if we ask someone “Have you made God the Lord of your life?” God does not need permission to be LORD. He is LORD regardless of what someone might think. He does as He pleases. This is humbling, but it is also encouraging. There is none who stands against you, against His church, that God does not say “Thus far shall you come and no farther.”
3. Third, God Is Worthy. These four living creatures before whom we might be tempted to shudder and shake, cry out to the LORD “Holy Holy Holy.” The elders who sit upon thrones, take off their crowns and cast them at his feet saying “Worthy are you!” God is worthy. God is worthy of your trust. He is worthy of your worship. If this is the message needed to be heard by a church that faced persecution even unto death…certainly it is more than adequate for any situation you are facing today. So in your confusion or hurt, look to the throne, trust God and overcome.
Questions For Discussion
In Revelation chapter 4, we are given a picture of the throne room of God. The fact that He is on the throne speaks to His sovereign rule over all things.
1) England’s Queen Elizabeth II was the nation’s longest serving monarch and this proved to be helpful in a world in which flux is the norm. Elizabeth’s grandson Prince William said in 2015 what many are appreciating today: “I think I speak for my generation when I say that the example and continuity provided by The Queen is not only very rare among leaders but a great source of pride and reassurance.” One obituary commented: “For more than 70 years, Elizabeth II symbolized stability, and Britain was the better for it.”
Reflect on the sense of stability that the scene in Revelation 4 ought to provide for believers.
2) The Second London Confession of Faith, Chapter 3, Paragraph 1 reads:
1. From all eternity God decreed everything that occurs, without reference to anything outside himself.1 He did this by the perfectly wise and holy counsel of his own will, freely and unchangeably. Yet God did this in such a way that he is neither the author of sin nor has fellowship with any in their sin.2 This decree does not violate the will of the creature or take away the free working or contingency of second causes. On the contrary, these are established by God’s decree.3 In this decree God’s wisdom is displayed in directing all things, and his power and faithfulness are demonstrated in accomplishing his decree.4
Isaiah 46:9-11; Ephesians 1:11; Hebrews 6:17; Romans 9:15, 18. 2James 1:13; 1 John 1:5. 3Acts 4:27, 28; John 19:11. 4Numbers 23:19; Ephesians 1:3–5.
What does it mean when it says that God decreed everything that occurs?
Does God control even that which is evil?
Look up the passages referenced to help you work through this.
3) It might be easy for us to acknowledge God’s sovereign control even over evil when we are not facing the threat of harm. If were you to discuss this with those who are in countries that face persecution and have had family members who have been imprisoned or evil killed for their faith, how would you approach it?
4) If God decrees all that occurs, what is the point in praying?
5) What does all of this mean for personal responsibility?
6) Sometimes saying God is control does not relieve a person’s anxiety but, rather, leads them to fear that the struggles they face are because God is punishing them. The issue is not “Is God in control?” but, “Since I know He is, why is He doing this to me?” How would you counsel someone who is in this position?
Some helps for answering the questions:
1) It might be interesting to note that the Queen was known as a woman of faith. Carl Trueman writes: “A friend who once had the privilege of being a royal chaplain and spending a weekend at Balmoral Castle confirmed that the conversations he had with the queen revealed her to be a thoughtful, devout Christian. As a humble Christian she took her earthly vocation seriously, placing the needs of the office and of the people she ruled before her own.” You can read his reflections on her at: https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2022/09/the-quiet-faith-of-queen-elizabeth-ii
2) It means that from all eternity, God decided what would happen in His creation. Without consulting anybody else and without being limited by anything outside of himself, God has decided what will happen--from the big things down to the smallest details. This plan that God has made is, taken as a whole, exactly the way that He wants it. The second thing that is mean by the phrase "ordain" is that God acts to bring about His plan. He does not just sit back and watch his plan be fulfilled by chance. God takes action to bring about what He has planned. In sum, the truth that God has ordained whatever comes to pass means that He (1) decides what will happen and then (2) makes it happen.
As for evil:
D.A. Carson explains it like this: "To put it bluntly, God stands behind evil in such a way that not even evil takes place outside the bounds of his sovereignty, yet the evil is not morally chargeable to him: it is always chargeable to the secondary agents, to secondary causes [i.e., those who actually do it]. On the other hand, God stands behind good in such a way that it not only takes place within the bounds of his sovereignty, but it is always chargeable to him, and only derivatively to secondary agents...If this sound just a bit too convenient for God, my initial response (though there is more to be said) is that according to the Bible this is the only God there is."
Jonathan Edwards tried to work it out by using the sun as an illustration. The day occurs because the sun produces its light and bathes the earth in it. The light is directly produced and given by the sun. Thus, the sun is the positive cause of the day. Now imagine that for reasons of its own, the sun suddenly transferred to another solar system. Darkness would result on the earth. The sun would not be the positive cause of the darkness, but the negative cause, because the darkness is not something that was produced by the sun and imposed upon the earth, but was rather the result of the earth being left to its own nature. Thus, the sun could not be considered the morally guilty cause of the darkness. The sun would be, however, the ultimate cause of this darkness, because its actions determined whether the earth would be light or dark. The sun could have chosen to stay, and daylight would have remained. By choosing to leave, darkness resulted.
Likewise, God is the ultimate cause of evil, but not the morally guilty cause. Evil results by His withholding the grace that would have prevented it, not by His producing sin. Thus, God gets the credit for the good because He is the positive cause of it--He directly produces the goodness in a Christian's heart that causes him to do good actions. But he gets none of the blame for sin because He does not produce sin in people's hearts, but directs it by means of negative causation.
Matt Perman continues this thought: God doesn't cause sin by taking righteous people and making them do what they don't want to. He does not inject sinful desires into people. Rather, we are already sinful. God simply leaves us to our own natures and makes use of the evil that is already there. Thus, we are responsible for our sinful actions because they proceed from our own heart. The source of sin is in the human heart, not God. What God does is divide, arrange, and direct the sin in the human heart, so that it manifests itself according to His purposes. God is sovereign over it because He arranges and shapes the form in which sin will express itself in. But we are accountable for it because it flows from our own hearts, not God. This helps us to understand the Scriptures which speak of God hardening someone's heart: God causes the heart to be hard not by injecting fresh evil into it, but by withdrawing His restraining grace so that the heart does what comes natural to it--become more rebellious.
See here for John Piper’s explanation for why he does not say that “God did not cause the calamity, but He can use it for good.”
3) The answers to this may vary, but it seems to me that much of our struggle with this comes from a combination of our lack of having to struggle daily through these questions, our emotions, and the particular cultural context we are in. The more I read of how Christians who face regular persecution deal which such questions, the more impressed I am over the fact that so few of them seem to struggle with the question of God’s sovereignty. This is one example from a pastor who was with Afghani Christians when the Taliban regained control of Kabul:
As news arrived on Saturday that the Taliban was already walking the streets of Kabul, we wept and prayed with our Afghan friends as they scrambled to make phone calls to family members who had hoped to leave for a safer location. Nobody was able to leave. The roads and flights had already closed. Of all topics, on Sunday morning we tackled the plagues in Exodus 7–11. At times Pharaoh hardened his heart. At other times God hardened Pharaoh’s heart. An Afghan evangelist in the room added: “Don’t forget that God called the most wicked king on earth, Nebuchadnezzar, ‘my servant’ in Jeremiah 27:6 and Jeremiah 43:10. “God is most certainly calling the Taliban ‘my servant.’”
4) There are many reasons why we should pray. First is because we are commanded to! John Calvin points out that prayer brings glory to God, changes the pray-er and prepares our hearts to receive God’s gifts in gratitude. Some may recall my own conjecture in seminary class that God, in His eternity, heard our prayers even before He created the world and interwove His answers to our prayers into creation. I almost feel like Steven Kneale must have been in my class listening to what I said because, in his attempt to understand it, he writes: “God folds our prayers into his sovereign plans.” He argues that the Holy Spirit prompts us to pray for what we pray to pave the way for God giving us what He has determined is for our good.
Another writer (I forget where I got this from) notes: “What would be the point of praying, of asking God to do things and make things happen, if he didn’t decide and control all things, and if he wasn’t absolutely sovereign over every power and authority in this universe and every other? What would be the point of praying if God couldn’t do the things we ask? If that were the case, then there really wouldn’t be any point at all, would there? Prayer to a God who wasn’t truly sovereign would indeed be a pointless exercise.”
5) It seems unreasonable that if God is truly sovereign, then we can be held wholly accountable, wholly responsible for our actions. If we are truly and utterly responsible, then how can God really be wholly and completely sovereign? It seems illogical. Well, it is a problem of logic. But the Bible tells us that it’s a problem of our logic, not God’s logic. God’s thoughts are higher than our thoughts, and his understanding is infinitely higher than ours, which means inevitably that we, as finite, created human beings, cannot fully fathom it.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts. (Isa. 55:9)
We can’t fully understand it. It’s as simple as that; it is beyond us. But that doesn’t mean it’s not true. Acts 4 sees nothing at all illogical in stating that God’s enemies, in killing Jesus, were nevertheless doing exactly what God’s sovereign hand had predestined to happen. They “were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus . . . to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place” (vv. 27–28). The Bible sees no logical problem with that, even if we do, because it is conversant with a higher, divine knowledge far beyond our finite, human understanding. We can’t fully comprehend it. Of course we can’t; if we could we would be divine ourselves! But we are not divine; we are human, and we just have to accept that fact, however humbling it is, along with the limitations that go with not being God.12
Now, you might be saying to yourself, “Well, that’s very unsatisfactory!” Certainly a skeptic might say, “That’s a typical Christian cop-out. It’s just nonsense! You can’t argue your logic, so you run off and take refuge in mystery, saying it is just beyond explanation.” I heard Anthony Grayling, the atheist philosopher, saying exactly that on the radio recently: “Oh, yes, you Christians, you fly away off, and you take refuge in mystery.” Richard Dawkins, too, says and writes very similar things.
So is that what we’re doing in speaking this way about a higher logic, a “hidden wisdom of God” far above the “wisdom of men” that trumps even the greatest “wisdom of this age”? (see 1 Cor. 2:5–8).
No, that is not what we’re doing. When we say that there are things beyond us that we cannot understand, we are expressing something called “humility.” We are simply saying that we, as human beings, are not omniscient, all knowing; and we’re not arrogant enough to assume that unless we can understand something absolutely and completely, then it can’t possibly be true
6) God knows when a sparrow falls from the sky, and if He cares for them, how much more does He care for us? (Matt. 6:26). Paul tells us that "for those who love God all things work together for good" (Rom. 8:28), and James states, "Let no one say when he is tempted, 'I am being tempted by God,' for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one" (James 1:13). James adds, "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change" (1:17). God does not tempt us (or cause us to be afraid), He gives us all good things, and He promises to turn everything (even our fears) to our good.
This short list of biblical passages reminds us that any fear we may be facing can bring God glory, be turned by God to our ultimate good, and grant us needed reassurance when we are afraid. Scripture calms our fears by reminding us that God is our heavenly Father who loves us and cares for us even when we fear Him, or dread His sovereign purposes. He still loves us even when we are afraid that He doesn't.
The second thing to consider is that if anyone believed in God's absolute sovereignty, it was Jesus. The Gospels reveal that even though Jesus knew God's purpose in advance and that the outcome to His suffering would be a glorious triumph over death and the grave, He nevertheless cried out to God in sorrow and with a troubled heart. Matthew 26:36–38 tell us "Jesus went . . . to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to his disciples, 'Sit here, while I go over there and pray.' And taking with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, he began to be sorrowful and troubled. Then he said to them, 'My soul is very sorrowful, even to death; remain here, and watch with me.'" Jesus also said, "the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.'" Then He prayed, 'My Father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, your will be done'" (vv. 41–42). In Luke's account, the extent of Jesus' fear is revealed: "And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly; and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground" (Luke 22:44).
He nevertheless trusted His Father to see Him through the horrific ordeal to come. Jesus may sweat drops of blood, but He drinks the cup of wrath to save us from our sins. Remarkably, Jesus is an example to us when we are afraid, and His suffering and death removes any guilt we may have for doubting God's promises or for fearing His approach or purposes. Jesus died for our all sins, including all sinful fear. Even better, we have a great high priest, who never sleeps nor slumbers, and who understands how we feel. It is Jesus to whom we pray when we are afraid, and it is Jesus who prays for us, even as we pray to Him (Heb. 4:14–16). This is what it means when we say, "God is in control."