Sovereignty Quotes

No attempt should be made to "reconcile" Yahweh's hardening of Pharaoh's heart (plagues 6,8,9,10) with statements in the other plagues that Pharaoh hardened his own heart.The tension cannot be resolved in a facile manner by suggesting, for example, that Pharaoh has already demonstrated his recalcitrance, so Yahweh merely helps the process along, or that he is doing what Pharaoh would have done on his own anyway. Rather, 9:12 is a striking reminder of what God has been trying to teach Moses and Israel since the beginning of the Exodus episode: He is in complete control. However Pharaoh might have reacted is given the chance is not brought into the discussion. He is not even given that chance. Yahweh hardens his heart. It is best to allow the tension of the text to remain.

Yes, it is totally acceptable that for any given country to become assured of its safety, it has to get out of its way to make the world safer generally. But getting out of its way does not necessarily have to mean getting into another country’s backyard. Rather, it should mean getting into a more sensible and a more effective coalition with other countries for same purpose in a manner that ensures both mutual safety and mutual dignity –both coming in adequate measures, the achieving of one not necessitating the foregoing of the other.

The battle belongs to the Lord, and we already know that He wins the war.

The free-will of men and the sovereignty of God are operationally co-existent, neither Reality impunes the 'co-dependent' authority of the other".R. Alan Woods [2012]

Sovereignty unconditionally belongs neither to the people of the nation nor to some supernatural power but to the human mind, to the science and to the high ethical values!

Mehmet Murat ildan

Those who seek only the rapture of divine union and quiescence of the mystic state are likewise not on our path. Such navel gazers lose the script for why they are even incarnated in the first place. To the sorcerer there is not much point in moments of primordial awareness if it does not carry over into the living levels of consciousness; no purpose to receiving the uncreated and clear light, if one cannot reflect it outward through world and deed; and no purpose in being a sovereign if you cannot leave the kingdom better than you found it.

Jason G. Miller

What I mean when I talk about sovereignty is that "we have a different way of being". Those of us who are organising around the idea of sovereignty are not asking for inclusion within the capitalist system. We're not asking for the so-called benefits of a capitalist system, which is always based on exclusions because it is based on privatising what was once communal and shared. We're saying no to being incorporated. We're saying yes to a completely different way of being, to a society based on commonality and plurality, not the fundamentalism of markets, religion, and the gender binary. We're not pushing to get in. Why should we want to enmesh ourselves in an economy and a political system that is driving the planet and our species toward destruction?

Sendolo Diamina

Peggy is a sovereign nation. She governs herself and those around her by her own laws.

Katlyn Charlesworth

As truly as God by His power oncecreated, so truly by that same power must God every moment maintain.

Sovereignty, loyalty, and solitude.

Georges Bataille

If American misjudgments and actions that evolved into human tragedies—i.e., racism, sexism, and other bigotries—are guiding lights, the Chinese leadership must ultimately yield its power to the sovereignty of its people.

Sovereignty...as understood in the Declaration of Independence was originally, and by nature, the equal and unalienable possession of individual human beings. The original equality of all human beings was an equality of sovereignty; no man had more right to rule another than the other had to rule him.

Our hope is a word and world of proud, independent nations that embrace their duties, seek friendship, respect others, and make common cause in the greatest shared interest of all: a future of dignity and peace for the people of this wonderful Earth.

Donald J. Trump

Heaven has appointed us dwellers on earth a time for all things.

Homer

Sure, some of us humans might be angry at a sovereign God about Hell, but know that that is about as meaningful as a few germs being angry at humans about bleach.

All sciences have their mysteries and at certain points the apparently most obvious theory will be found in contradiction with experience. Politics, for example, offers several proofs of this truth. In theory, is anything more absurd than hereditary monarchy? We judge it by experience, but if government had never been heard of and we had to choose one, whoever would deliberate between hereditary and elective monarchy would be taken for a fool. Yet we know by experience that the first is, all things considered, the best that can be imagined, while the second is the worst. What arguments could not be amassed to establish that sovereignty comes from the people? However they all amount to nothing. Sovereignty is always taken, never given, and a second more profound theory subsequently discovers why this must be so. Who would not say the best political constitution is that which has been debated and drafted by statesmen perfectly acquainted with the national character, and who have foreseen every circumstance? Nevertheless nothing is more false. The best constituted people is the one that has the fewest written constitutional laws, and every written constitution is WORTHLESS.

Joseph de Maistre

If you are not there for other people, do not expect them to be there for you. In many a case one might conclude that this is part of God's sovereign justice. His grace, however, is that He Himself will always be there for you, no matter what.

When God is our Holy Father, sovereignty, holiness, omniscience, and immutability do not terrify us; they leave us full of awe and gratitude. Sovereignty is only tyrannical if it is unbounded by goodness; holiness is only terrifying if it is untempered by grace; omniscience is only taunting if it is unaccompanied by mercy; and immutability is only torturous if there is no guarantee of goodwill.

My ancestors arrived on the Wayflower

Robert Wesley Miller

Modern sovereignty, whether expressed through killing in battle or the torture of suspects, brings together the desire to build up and the desire to destroy, to let Aid Agencies offer charity (in its original meaning of "love") while the military offers death. The two are intrinsically connected.

The consequence model, the logical one, the amoral one, the one which refuses any divine intervention, is a problem really for just the (hypothetical) logician. You see, towards God I would rather be grateful for Heaven (which I do not deserve) than angry about Hell (which I do deserve). By this the logician within must choose either atheism or theism, but he cannot possibly through good reason choose anti-theism. For his friend in this case is not at all mathematical law: the law in that 'this equation, this path will consequently direct me to a specific point'; over the alternative and the one he denies, 'God will send me wherever and do it strictly for his own sovereign amusement.' The consequence model, the former, seeks the absence of God, which orders he cannot save one from one's inevitable consequences; hence the angry anti-theist within, 'the logical one', the one who wants to be master of his own fate, can only contradict himself - I do not think it wise to be angry at math.

Hmm. I think love is about loving all things, to treat each and every thing and every one as a sovereign being that’s free to make its own choices.

Michael Sanders

Power without compassion is like a giant that blocks the sunlight.

Where God is like the sun, the Devil is like a raindrop. There is no 'God vs. Satan' because they aren't even that close in power and authority. The former is very patient; the latter is at mercy.

Sadly enough, some people are insecure in such a way that they cannot bear the thought of the sovereignty of God, the thought of His Being as greater than themselves. It makes them feel insignificant. But I know if I were to worship and obey anything, I would like it far greater than myself or any person or human system, preferably to the point that which it, perhaps, in all its majesty, makes me feel lost and even 'creatural' in my sheer humanity. Only this God - He who is great beyond human measure, yet still considers His creation precious - I find to be more than worthy of praise; otherwise, I bow down and worship nothing. And if the thought of such a superior and almighty God were to indeed offend me, I would have to remember that it is because I am only as significant as the things which I am idolizing, things which are ultimately separating me, the creation, from my original Creator.

The skeptic says that the believer has lost his own mind under God. On the contrary, it is the people who follow God who are most like his children, who willingly and consciously walk in his will; but those who oppose him oppose him vainly and at their own expense, and, figuratively, seem to be more like his tools. They don't diminish his glory, but instead he still manages to use them in ways of unconsciously carrying out his will.

What's simple is that everything good comes from God, and everything bad comes from man. Where it gets complicated is that everything seemingly good but ultimately bad comes from man, and everything seemingly bad but ultimately good comes from God.

God is not some lesser employee, as many try to make Him out to be: rather He is the ultimate Treasure. He works in a man; He works on a man; He works through a man; He works around a man. Know that He does far more than simply work for a man. And yet, even as He Himself needs no one else, everyone else is ever in need of Him.

All I do know is that the world has a Chief who was victorious when the powers of darkness struck at him with everything they had. He has the plans today. The darkness won't last forever. There's a splendour beyond.

Constance Savery

Without Christ a people may always have the freedom to do, but never the power to complete.

To understand even remotely the holy omnipotence of God is to understand at least from mostly to wholly the magnificence of Christ.

Every country has its own problem too numerous to name, so does North Korea. And it’s no one’s business to solve the latter’s problem unless it seeks for it. If North Korea shows off its nuclear weapon capability, it’s because its sovereignty was threatened by foreign powers. It doesn’t want to happen to its country what’s happening now in Iraq, Syria, Libya, Afghanistan, and Yemen. Justice and charity begin at home, not at someone’s backyard. Hence, any country trying to solve North Korea’s problem by force or by any means should start first in its own backyard and solve the political and social injustices, divisions, and neglect suffered by its own citizens.

Danny Castillones Sillada

It's all very well for us to sit here in the west with our high incomes and cushy lives, and say it's immoral to violate the sovereignty of another state. But if the effect of that is to bring people in that country economic and political freedom, to raise their standard of living, to increase their life expectancy, then don't rule it out.

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

The object of this Essay is to assert one very simple principle, as entitled to govern absolutely the dealings of society with the individual in the way of compulsion and control, whether the means used be physical force in the form of legal penalties, or the moral coercion of public opinion. That principle is, that the sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number, is self-protection. That the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant. He cannot rightfully be compelled to do or forbear because it will be better for him to do so, because it will make him happier, because, in the opinions of others, to do so would be wise, or even right. These are good reasons for remonstrating with him, or reasoning with him, or persuading him, or entreating him, but not for compelling him, or visiting him with any evil, in case he do otherwise. To justify that, the conduct from which it is desired to deter him must be calculated to produce evil to someone else. The only part of the conduct of any one, for which he is amenable to society, is that which concerns others. In the part which merely concerns himself, his independence is, of right, absolute. Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign.

John Stuart Mill

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

Michael Bassey Johnson

God's relationship with man does not work in a way in which man stumbles and then God has to drop what he is doing in order to lift him up; rather, man stumbles so that God can lift him up. Hence it is utterly impossible to truly diminish his glory.

Of all the major religions, or lack thereof, the atheist's is one of the best pretenders: his foundation for all existences, as well as moral behaviors for the permanent good of mankind, begins at science but ends at himself, the Napoleon complex of both intelligence and imagination. On the other hand the anti-theist wouldn't survive without a deity beyond himself to hunt. He doesn't pretend, he simply nullifies his own position.

The logic of the Bible says: Act according to God's "will of command," not according to his "will of decree." God's "will of decree" is whatever comes to pass. "If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that" (James 4:15). God's "will of decree" ordained that his Son be betrayed (Luke 22:22), ridiculed (Isaiah 53:3), mocked (Luke 18:32), flogged (Matthew 20:19), forsaken (Matthew 26:31), pierced (John 19:37), and killed (Mark 9:31). But the Bible teaches us plainly that we should not betray, ridicule, mock, flog, forsake, pierce, or kill innocent people. That is God's "will of command." We do not look at the death of Jesus, clearly willed by God, and conclude that killing Jesus is good and that we should join the mockers.

Man approaches God most nearly when he is in one sense least like God. For what can be more unlike than fullness and need, sovereignty and humility, righteousness and penitence, limitless power and a cry for help?

Men will allow God to be everywhere but on his throne. They will allow him to be in his workshop to fashion worlds and make stars. They will allow Him to be in His almonry to dispense His alms and bestow his bounties. they will allow Him to sustain the earth and bear up the pillars thereof, or light the lamps of heaven, or rule the waves of the ever-moving ocean; but when God ascends Hes throne, His creatures then gnash their teeth. And we proclaim an enthroned God, and His right to do as He wills with His own, to dispose of His creatures as He thinks well, without consulting them in the matter; then it is that we are hissed and execrated, and then it is that men turn a deaf ear to us, for God on His throne is not the God they love. But it is God upon the throne that we love to preach. It is God upon His throne whom we trust.

Charles Haddon Spurgeon

If you truly want to be respected by people you love, you must prove to them that you can survive without them.

Michael Bassey Johnson