Sermon on Lord’s Day 10⤒🔗

27. Q. What do you understand by the providence of God?
A. God's providence is His almighty and ever present power,[1] whereby, as with His hand, He still upholds heaven and earth and all creatures,[2] and so governs them that leaf and blade, rain and drought, fruitful and barren years, food and drink, health and sickness, riches and poverty,[3] indeed, all things, come not by chance[4] but by His fatherly hand.[5] [1] Jer. 23:23,24; Acts 17:24-28. [2] Heb. 1:3. [3] Jer. 5:24; Acts 14:15-17; John 9:3; Prov. 22:2. [4] Prov. 16:33. [5] Matt. 10:29.

28. Q. What does it benefit us to know that God has created all things and still upholds them by His providence?
A. We can be patient in adversity,[1] thankful in prosperity,[2] and with a view to the future we can have a firm confidence in our faithful God and Father that no creature shall separate us from His love;[3] for all creatures are so completely in His hand that without His will they cannot so much as move.[4]
[1] Job. 1:21, 22; Ps. 39:10; James 1:3. [2] Deut. 8:10; I Thess. 5:18. [3] Ps. 55:22; Rom. 5:3-5; 8:38, 39. [4] Job 1:12; 2:6; Prov. 21:1; Acts 17:24-28.

Scripture Reading: Ps 139, Job 2:1-10; 3:20-26; 42:1-6

Singing: (Psalms and Hymns are from the "Book of Praise" Anglo Genevan Psalter)
Psalm 62:1,3
Psalm 42:4,5
Psalm 23:1,2,3
Psalm 139:1,3,9,10
Hymn 53:1,2

Beloved Congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ!

The God Who saved you from the pit of hell: what kind of God is this? Last week, with LD 9, we confessed that the God who gave His only Son for our salvation is the Almighty; He once spoke and the world came into existence. The stars of heaven, the fish of the sea, Bluff Knoll and the Gloucester Tree: all are His handiwork. Our Father in Jesus Christ is not a little God, but the Sovereign of all.

We find it comforting to know that our Father in Jesus Christ is the Almighty. But, truth be said, that confession gives us some problems. If our God is in fact the Almighty, that surely means that He is in a position to prevent that bad things come to us. Yet bad things happen to us. Why? Why does He let bad things happen to us? Did He save us from the Pit, only to afflict us with evil and torment in this life?

The question is important. For there are many children of God by covenant who have turned their backs on God precisely because they got entangled in the web of questions that arise from experiencing bad things coming from an almighty God. One can understand the question: why serve a God who lumbers you with evil afflictions??

Yes, the question is important. But the answer, my brothers and sisters, is not one that I can explain to the satisfaction of limited and sinful human minds. Please, then, do not expect from me this afternoon an explanation that satisfies all questions in our minds concerning how a sovereign and caring Father can let evil happen to us. All I can do is open for you the Scriptures, and ask of you to accept with humility what your Father in Jesus Christ says.

What He says? That Yes, He does control all things, so much so that no dog nor demon can so much as blink unless God permit. And this sovereign God directs things in our lives with such perfect wisdom that through both good and bad we are increasingly conformed to His image. I can’t understand this, but I can believe it.

I summarise the sermon with this theme:

My sovereign Father always seeks my good

1. The sovereignty of my Father
2. The response of God’s child

The sovereignty of my Father←⤒🔗

"In the beginning God created heaven and earth." After God finished creating, what did He do? For argument’s sake, let’s consider a tree God made on the third day of creation. God spoke, and the tree was there. If, now, after creating that tree God had left it to itself and given His full attention to something else (or deserted His work), what would have become of that tree? It would, congregation, have disintegrated into the nothingness it was before God created it. I say that because of what the apostle says to the people of Athens: "In [God] we live and move and have our being" (Acts 17:28). Elihu in Job 34 says it too:

If [God] should gather to Himself His Spirit and His breath,
All flesh would perish together,
And man would return to dust (vs 14f).

That is: without God no one –and no thing- can live or move or even exist. After God created that tree, then, He did not leave it to itself; God continued to involve Himself with that tree, gave it continued existence. That action of God whereby He keeps His handiwork existing is described in our LD with the word ‘upholds’. Top of page 484: "as with His hand, He still upholds heaven and earth and all creatures."

God, though, does more than keep His creation existing. God also cause His handiwork to change, to develop, to make progress. So, that tree He created on the third day grew some more leaves in the days that followed, developed fruit, generated seed. Here is development in the tree. But that development too is God’s active work. The Bible is filled with references to the effect that it is God who causes crops to grow, God who gives wind and rain, etc, etc. That action of God whereby He causes development in His created works is described in our LD with the word ‘governs’. Again on page 484: God "so governs them that leaf and blade, rain and drought, fruitful and barren years, food and drink, health and sickness, riches and poverty, indeed, all things, come not by chance but by His fatherly hand." Together, this ‘upholding’ and this ‘governing’ is called the Providence of God.

Is God, then, far removed from His creation? Do we do well to think that God in heaven is very, very far away from us on earth? You’ve all heard of the clock-maker; after days of labour he had his clock together. With satisfaction he wound it up, listened for a while to the musical tick-tock of the new clock, then set it on the shelf and went home for the night. Next day he came back, and the clock was still ticking along merrily; all the clock-maker had to do was return once or twice a week to wind it up again. Is God like that? Has He made a world, wound it up (so to speak), and so can absent Himself from His world while that world ticks on by itself? Can we consider ourselves and our environment the clock, and God the absent clockmaker? Is God far removed from His creation, detached from it – be it that He comes back once in a while to check up?

Let it be clear in our minds, brothers and sisters: if the Lord would retreat from His handiwork and leave us on our own even for the shortest of moments, the world and we with it would disintegrate into nothingness! "In Him we live and move and have our being." "If [God] should gather to Himself His Spirit and His breath, All flesh would perish together." God is not far away, ever. God is always actively involved in every aspect of the world He made. That is why Jesus could remind His disciples of the sparrows. Listen:

Are not two sparrows sold for a copper coin? And not one of them falls to the ground apart from your Father’s will. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Do not fear therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows Mt 10:29ff

Sparrows: they were so common to the disciples; there were thousands of them around. And not one falls to the ground "apart from your Father’s will"? Truly, what a thought! Talk about God’s active involvement in the world He made! In fact, Jesus says, "the very hairs of your head are all numbered." I really don’t know how many hairs are on my head, let alone on your heads. I really don’t know either how many hairs I lost when I showered this morning. Jesus says that God knows! And the point of His knowing is that He controls even the most insignificant things so that not a hair gets stuck in the comb unless God permits.

Can you fathom that, beloved? Truly, I can’t! But this is the Word God revealed to you and to me: the Creator of heaven and earth remains today very actively involved in every aspect of His creation. It gives something to think about. When the dice is thrown, who determines which number will come on top? Who determines in a game of Monopoly whether I land on Sydney Station or Kings Avenue or get to pass Go? Says the Lord in His Word: all is in His control.

The lot is cast into the lap,
But its every decision is from the Lord Prov 16:33

Big things, small things "come not by chance but by His fatherly hand." Truly, what a God!

With all this in mind, may I invite you to look with me at Ps 139. David begins the psalm with a confession that God knows all things happening in David’s life. That’s vs 2:

You know my sitting down and my rising up.

I don’t recall how many times I’ve sat down today and risen again from my chair. Nor do I know exactly why I sat down or got up. But David confesses that God does know David’s sitting down and rising up. In fact, this God knows David’s every thought; vs 2:

You understand my thought afar off.

Even before David can get a word out of his mouth, God knows what he’s going to say. Vs 4:

For there is not a word on my tongue,
But behold, O Lord, You know it altogether.

All of that together is to say that God is never distant from David; God is rather so close that there’s no place where David is absent from God. Vs 7ff:

Where can I go from Your Spirit?
Or where can I flee from Your presence?
If I ascend into heaven, You are there;

If I make my bed in hell, behold, You are there.
If I take the wings of the morning,
And dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
Even there Your hand shall lead me,
And Your right hand shall hold me.

Notice those last words:

Even there Your hand shall lead me,
And Your right hand shall hold me.

David knows: his every step is governed by the God Who is always with him, the God Who controls all things perfectly. Yes, so much so is this God involved in David’s life that –says David- it is God who determined long ago all that would happen in David’s life. Look at vs 16:

…in Your book they all were written,"

- what was written?

The days fashioned for me,
When as yet there were none of them.

How amazing! That David would have a ruddy complexion, that his father would be Jesse and his mother be Mrs Jesse, that he would have seven older brothers, that he’d be a shepherd boy, would meet up with a bear and a lion and kill them both, that he’d be anointed king, would kill Goliath, would be chased up and down the countryside by King Saul, would have an affair with Bethsheba, would kill Uriah, would refuse to repent for some time, would be confronted by Nathan – all that, and so much more, was determined by God for David’s life long before he was conceived! And if God determined that all these things were to happen, and they in fact did happen – that’s simply to say that every aspect of David’s life was fully and completely controlled by God; nothing happened to David by chance! No wonder David expressed holy awe:

"How precious … are Your thoughts to me, O God!
How great is the sum of them!" (vs 17).

Who, my brothers and sisters, is the God who rescued you from the pit of hell through Jesus Christ and made you His child? No, He is not a small God; we heard that last week. More, He is not a God-afar-off; His revelation about His upholding and governing the world He made – including every area of my life and yours- presents Him as very involved in every single aspect of our existence. It’s true: I am no more successful than you are in understanding how God can control every aspect of my life, and your’s too, let alone the other 5 billion persons on the planet today – and that’s to say nothing of the animals and the plants and the insects and the fish and the molecules and the atoms…. My education and my experience tells me that it’s simply impossible for one Mind to control the exact conduct of every atom, every molecule, on this planet and in this universe, and I instinctively reject this teaching as unacceptable. That is why I need to remind myself, again, that I am but a creature and my God is the Creator. With my limited and finite mind I shall never, ever fathom God’s greatness, God’s sovereignty, never comprehend how this God can control all things in all creation. But that’s OK; I don’t have to understand. My Almighty Father in Jesus Christ tells me that in all creation there’s never a sparrow nor a stealth bomber falls out of the sky apart from His involvement. Since He says it, I accept it, believe it. And so I’m comforted; my times are in His hands.

This sense of comfort is the more reassuring when I recall God’s word in a passage as Rom 8. For the Lord gives in that passage this guarantee:

… all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose. For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren (vss 28f)

Notice: God promises to cause every event He allows in our lives to benefit us –how?- by using it to make us conform more and more "to the image of His Son." Elsewhere in the Bible God describes this concept as "sharing His holiness" (Heb 12:10). God, then, has a goal in mind for us, and that goal is that we increasingly act like children of God, increasingly image the Son of God, increasingly share His holiness. How shall God get us from where we are –unable to do any good, inclined to all evil- how shall God get us from where we are to where He wants us to be? In the school of life He reaches into our lives in His wise way, giving us this, withholding us that, in order that through these experiences we grow the more in Him. Since the God who controls every event in my life loves me so much that He gave His Son to rescue me from the pit I deserve, I believe that He makes no mistakes in whatever He does in my life. It is as He says: God works all things together for good….

The Response of God’s Child←⤒🔗

That brings us to our second point: the response of God’s child to this sovereignty of the Father. As it is, our LD mentions two reactions that now require our attention. In the words of A 28: "we can be patient in adversity, thankful in prosperity". Let us be honest: we find it so exceedingly difficult to be patient in adversity.

The Lord tells us of Job, a man "blameless and upright, and one who feared God and shunned evil" (Job 1:1). The man was rich; besides 10 children,

his possessions were seven thousand sheep, three thousand camels, five hundred yoke of oxen, five hundred female donkeys, and a very large household, so that this man was the greatest of all the people of the East" (vs 3).

In one day, he lost the lot. No, he didn’t know that God and Satan had had a conversation about him in heaven, and that God had given Satan permission to impoverish Job. But Job did know his total and utter dependence on God. Hence his reaction to his adversity:

"Then Job arose, tore his robe, and shaved his head; and he fell to the ground and worshiped. And he said:

Naked I came from my mother’s womb,
And naked shall I return there.
The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away;
Blessed be the name of the Lord’" (1:20f).

Notice: Job concedes that his riches had come from God in the first place, concedes also that God took the riches away. With this reaction, Job gave us a concrete application of the material of our LD. Here is how we all need to respond in the adversities of our lives: "the Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; Blessed be the name of the Lord."

Not so long afterwards Job’s skin broke out into painful boils, from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head. Result:

"And he took for himself a potsherd with which to scrape himself while he sat in the midst of the ashes" (vs 8).

And while he sat there in his misery, his wife came along, and advised him to "Curse God and die!" (vs 9). His friends came too, and mocked him, told him he must be a very sinful man for God to do this sort of thing to him…. The men of town came also, and –they used to respect Job- now spit in his face (17:6)….

What does this bag of bones (19:20) do in his misery? Ah, how we can understand it! In the anguish of his ash heap, as his body and his soul hurt him so persistently, so cruelly, he throws his question into the face of God: Why?! Why do you do this to me? Sixteen times in the course of his speeches Job demands an answer of God: Why?! And no, Job doesn’t ask his question in a humble manner, as of a child of God who knows himself safe in the hands of his Almighty Father. Rather, he is petulant, he is demanding, he is accusatory of God; Job would have God know that God has made a mistake in letting this evil befall Job. There is nothing of patience with God in Job’s response! And how we can understand that reaction! In our adversities, we find ourselves asking the same question….

Page with me, then, through the words of Elihu and the words of God. Elihu: he’s that youngest friend who held his peace until the older three had said their bit. Then, in 33:12f, he says to Job this:

Look, in this you are not righteous.
I will answer you,
Why do you contend with Him?
For He does not give an accounting of any of His words.

God Himself confirms that Elihu is completely correct, that it’s not for any person to contend with God, to demand from God an account of what He does. Chap 38: "the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind, and said:

Who is this who darkens counsel
By words without knowledge?

There’s God’s challenge to Job: Job, you’ve had a big mouth against me; come now,

"prepare yourself like a man;
I will question you, and you shall answer Me" (vs 3).

Then God refers to His works in the beginning:

"Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?
Tell Me, if you have understanding" (vs 4).

And God refers too to His works on each and every day since He made the world so long ago. Vs 12:

"Have you commanded the morning since your days began,
And caused the dawn to know its place?"

In other words: are you big enough to make the sun rise morning by morning, and always at the right time? Says God: when you’re still sound asleep, I’m busy upholding, governing this world so that you can live, can have another day. And, Job, can you make it rain? Vs 34:

"Can you lift up your voice to the clouds,
That an abundance of water may cover you?"

All of it together overwhelmed Job, so that he could only stammer out a reply:

"Behold, I am vile;
What shall I answer You?
I lay my hand over my mouth.
Once I have spoken, but I will not answer;
Yes, twice, but I will proceed no further" (Job 40:4,5).

But even that humility on Job’s part wasn’t enough for God. God had a point to make to the man with the big mouth, and so He began again, two more chapters of evidence about the greatness of His might, how it is that He sovereignly upholds and governs the world He once made. And throughout the two chapters the absolute contrast between the greatness of the God who controls every breath and every action of even the biggest animals and the littleness of man who hasn’t got a ghost of a change of controlling the beasts of the bush comes out in radical relief. In the face of all that greatness, Job’s reaction is so instructive for us. Chap 42:

"Then Job answered the Lord and said:
I know that You can do everything,
And that no purpose of Yours can be withheld from You.
You asked, ‘Who is this who hides counsel without knowledge?’
Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand,
Things too wonderful for me, which I did not know.
Listen, please, and let me speak;
You said, ‘I will question you, and you shall answer Me.’
I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear,
But now my eye sees You.
Therefore I abhor myself,
And repent in dust and ashes" (vss 1-6).

Shall we, then, congregation, complain about what God in His wisdom puts on our path? Is complaining not arrogance in the extreme – as if we actually have a right to question God for what He does? No, beloved, let us instead bear patiently whatever our loving Father in Jesus Christ puts on our path. It is not for us to get bitter at the events of our lives, and it’s not for us either to get frustrated or angry or depressed; it’s instead for us, with Elihu, to admit that God makes no mistakes (Job 36:22f). Even if He were to let Satan have a go at us, there’s no mistake in it, for He has His divine purpose in mind: His glory and our salvation.

Do I understand the details, the whys and wherefores of whatever my Father in Jesus Christ gives – be it adversity, be it prosperity? No, I don’t understand all God permits; my limited and sinful mind cannot grasp God’s ways. But I know what God says: He loves me with a perfect love – witness the fact that He gave His only Son for me. So He –sovereign Father as He is- will let nothing happen to me unless He is wisdom determines it’s good for my salvation and His glory.

So, in adversity and in prosperity, I make it my business day by day and moment by moment to cling to His promises – and believe that in His mighty hands I am perfectly safe, no matter where He leads me. Amen.

---