God directs the course of history, and its tipping points are the moments when He acts. Within the roughly 600-year span from 800 to 200 BC, two biblically based tipping points stand out. The first is God's imposition of a 2,520-year period of punishment on the ten-tribed House of Israel around 722 BC. The second is His imposition of a 2,520-year period of punishment on Judah, midway through the same span. Both changed history decisively. In this era the old empires of Mesopotamia and Egypt faded, and Greece and Rome, which had been inconsequential before 800 BC, rose to take their place. God gradually moved the locus of history westward, away from the Levant, and after Rome's fall relocated it northward, so that cities like Berlin, Paris, and London thrived while Babylon, Jerusalem, and Memphis languished. Yet history also shows repeating patterns, because mankind's unchanging, desperately wicked nature (Jeremiah 17:9) and Satan's persistent deception as prince of the power of the air (Ephesians 2:2; Revelation 12:9) produce similar events over time. Ideas that appear new are only different, for there is nothing new under the sun (Ecclesiastes 1:9).

The Creator God is sovereign and is constantly moving all of history toward the purpose He set from the beginning: creating a family in His image. All things do not continue as they were. God intervenes and adjusts the course of international, national, and personal events, as the Flood, the Tower of Babel, the freeing of Israel from Egypt, and the scattering of the Israelites show. He directs even a king's thoughts as water is turned into irrigation ditches (Proverbs 21:1), so all governors of men are under His control. Therefore no authority exists except from God (Romans 13:1-2), and no wisdom or counsel stands against Him (Proverbs 21:30-31). Isaiah 10 shows Him using Assyria to punish Israel, making an unwilling nation cooperate, and then judging its pride. Men are empowered to do only what God wills or permits. God never looks away; whatever happens He has either permitted or directly caused. He knows the end from the beginning (Isaiah 46:10) and so is confident of His plan that He sees it as already accomplished (Romans 8:29-30). He sovereignly calls whom He will, and He will eventually call all mankind, since Christ must reign until every enemy is under His feet. Man's disasters come from sin, not from God's will, since He made man upright. Believers, knowing God rules, can live by faith without fear when events seem out of control, trusting that nothing can separate them from His love.

God directs the course of history according to His purpose. He intervenes in the affairs of nations and individuals to move events toward the conclusion He determined from the beginning. The Creator sets the bounds of nations' habitations and determines their times. He turns the heart of a king wherever He wills, directing decisions that guide entire nations in chosen directions. God is constantly managing and governing His creation through adjustments in the course of events, both national and personal. He sweeps away attempts to unite mankind under one government by confusing languages. He changes the heart of one who burns with anger so that joy replaces hostility upon meeting. He compels a prophet sent to curse to bless instead. He causes an enemy who builds a gallows for another to be hanged upon it himself. He brings a resistant servant around through circumstances until the servant thinks as He does. God sends one nation as a rod of anger against another to accomplish punishment, yet later judges the instrument for its pride in taking credit. He empowers actions that fulfill His will while ensuring no leader or confederacy can turn Him aside. Attempts by rulers to break free from His bands are met with derision, for He has set His king upon Zion. Safety remains with the Lord, as no wisdom or counsel can stand against Him.

God's control of history rests on the reality that He has deliberately limited His calling for salvation to a small remnant at this time while appointing the rest to stumble, not because they are eternally lost but because God's timing governs when each person receives the opportunity to be called, and He is not willing that any should perish. Only God can save, and salvation is a question of when rather than whether, since He alone possesses sovereignty over all creation, and nothing can prevent Him from accomplishing what He wills. This sovereignty is displayed on a historical scale through His dealings with Israel and the Gentiles: Israel's temporary stumbling opened salvation to the Gentiles, and eventually Israel will be reconciled and grafted back into the same root as the church, demonstrating that God governs the unfolding of nations and peoples across time toward His ultimate purpose. Two further periods of judgment and salvation are appointed—one during the Millennium directed first toward Israel and then other nations, and a second after the Millennium for all who never had opportunity before—showing that God's control of history extends beyond the present age into ordained future ages. This same sovereignty extends to the personal level through God's governance of individual destinies, as expressed in Hannah's prayer that the LORD kills and makes alive, brings low and lifts up, showing Him as the sovereign Controller of both history and individual lives. Human beings, by contrast, are shortsighted, as illustrated by the rich fool who presumed control over his future, and by James's warning against boasting about tomorrow, since only God knows and directs what will come to pass. God's sovereignty means He does not need to alter His purposes, for they were framed in perfect wisdom and goodness from the beginning, unlike human plans, which must change due to ignorance. This divine control directly shapes the purpose of prayer. Rather than existing to change God's mind or alter the course of events, prayer functions as access into the presence of the sovereign God so that human will may be aligned with His already perfect will. Because God foreknows all things and has predestined the calling and salvation of His people, prayer's true purpose is to seek the accomplishment of His will in His own time, not to redirect a history that He alone governs. Examples such as Elijah, Daniel, and Jesus Christ Himself show that even prayers uttered by those who already knew God's will were still offered in submission to it, illustrating that recognition of God's control over history and destiny is meant to produce humility, dependency, and yieldedness rather than presumption or demand.

God is sovereign over His creation, and nothing can stand in the way of what He wills to accomplish. Because His purpose is eternal (Ephesians 3:11) and He works all things after the counsel of His own will (Ephesians 1:11), He knows the end from the beginning and has no need to change His design. Changing a purpose is what shortsighted men do, and to say God changes His mind impugns His goodness and wisdom. Man's destiny is therefore not shaped by human will but by God, as Hannah's song declares: the Lord kills and makes alive, brings low and lifts up, and sets the world on His pillars (I Samuel 2:6-8). Believers owe their begettal, repentance, faith, and place in His church to His will, not their own (John 1:12-13; 3:3), and God predestined them to be conformed to His image (Romans 8:29). His sovereignty also extends to Israel's present stumbling. Israel is ordained to stumble for now, which opens salvation to the called, yet Israel has not fallen from God's program, and its salvation lies ahead (Romans 11). Human plans for controlling the future are foolish (James 4:13-15; Proverbs 27:1; Luke 12), and prayer changes things only when it agrees with what God has already willed. His unchangeableness is the ground of faith and of the hope that He will bring His desire for salvation to completion.