Sermon on Lord’s Day 10a⤒🔗

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: Psalm 147, Psalm 139:13-18, Genesis 45:1-8

Singing: (Psalms and Hymns are from the "Book of Praise" Anglo Genevan Psalter)
Psalm 147:1,3
Psalm 145:4
Psalm 27:6
Psalm 139:8,9,10
Hymn 27:1,2,3,4

Beloved Congregation of the Lord Jesus Christ!

There’s a sentence in Lord’s Day 10 that raises so very many questions. So many things have happened in our personal and congregational life that we experience as painful, even sinful. We have seen people make mistakes, commit sin, and the result is so much damage, so much hurt, so much confusion. We can’t help it: every time we feel the pain, every time we see the damage, we think of the sinner, the person (or maybe persons) who did such-and-such, and feelings of bitterness and possibly distrust arise in our hearts toward that person or body of persons.

In the face of that reality Lord’s Day 10 is so very puzzling. For in this Lord’s Day the church –and that’s you and me- says that "all things come not by chance but by His fatherly hand." "All things … by His fatherly hand": really? Evil things too? And: if evil things come from God’s hands, how can we ever love or trust this God?!

This morning I proclaim to you the word of God about your Father’s sovereignty over all of life, all evil included. I need first to show from the Scriptures that Yes, the Lord controls absolutely everything in all life. Then I need to draw out how God would have us respond to this gospel. I summarize the sermon with this theme:

Our Father in Jesus Christ controls all things totally 

1. The extent of Father’s control.
2. The response befitting Father’s children.

The extent of Father’s control←⤒🔗

The church’s confession in Lord’s Day 10 about the sovereignty of our heavenly Father, brothers and sisters, comes straight from God’s revelation in the Bible. We’ve had some rain this past week. Science can explain for us the processes of evaporation and condensation, and that’s all very interesting. But in so doing, say the Scriptures, science does nothing else than lay out for us how the Lord God makes it rain. For that, says the Lord, is the reality; no drop of rain fell to the ground this past week without God’s will. Ps 147: God "covers the skies with clouds, He supplies the earth with rain…" (vs 8). And later: "He spreads the snow like wool and scatters the frost like ashes; He hurls down His hail like pebbles…" (vs 16f). The Lord insists: what we’ve seen this past week in rain and hail, and even snow on the mountains, has come from the hand of the God who has become our Father for Jesus’ sake.

Similarly, it is God who gives "leaf and blade". Again Ps 147: God "makes grass grow on the hills" (vs 8). Ps 104 says that trees bud at His command (vs 30), and come spring time we can see it happening. Jesus tells the disciples to "consider the lilies of the field, how they grow" (Mt 6:28), and His point is that the disciples need to see God’s hand in the development of the lily. He tells them also to "look at the birds of the air," and again the point is that the birds keep flying because their heavenly Father governs the lives of these birds. As Jesus says elsewhere: "Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from the will of your Father" (Mt 10:29).

I cannot comprehend it, beloved, but this is the word of the Lord: every blade of grass in my backyard, every leaf in Australia’s forest, every parrot and sparrow is in the firm and absolute control of God Almighty. He spoke a word in the beginning, and the stars and trees and flowers were instantly there; with the same mighty hand He daily upholds and governs every aspect of all He made. This is what our God tells us in His Word, and that’s why we echo His word in the Catechism: "leaf and blade, rain and drought, fruitful and barren years, food and drink, health and sickness, riches and poverty, indeed all things, come to us not by chance but by His fatherly hand."

This instruction from the Lord, though, raises other questions. For: if rain comes from God’s hand, what about too much rain? And the human suffering that comes from floods, the devastation of the crops, the grief at the drowning of loved ones? Does that come from God? If yes, can I keep serving a God who let’s evils happen??

And what shall we say when disaster is the result of human actions? We grant that rain comes from God, and have to admit too that too much rain also comes from God. But what shall we say when human error is the cause of the dam bursting under the pressure of the rain? Does the resulting flood and devastation in that case also come from God?

You will know that there are theologians who argue that God does not control everything. They tell us that God would love to stop evil things from happening, but sometimes He can’t; He isn’t big enough for that, things get out of His hand, and He cries with the people who cry in the face of the evil things happening to them.

But let it be clear, congregation, that the Lord speaks differently. I’ve mentioned already God’s total control over the rain, the grass, and the birds. The Holy Spirit tells us that also the thoughts of people’s minds are in God’s control – and therefore also the things people do. Prov 21: "the king’s heart is in the hands of the Lord; He directs it like a watercourse wherever He pleases" (vs 1). That is: as people dig ditches to get water to where they want it, so God turns the king’s heart (his mind) so that the king does the things God ordains. So I read in Is 10, for example, that the king of Assyria is simply the tool in God’s hand by which God punishes Jerusalem. True, says that passage, the king doesn’t think in terms of being but a tool in God’s hands; he thinks he’s his own boss and can do what he wishes. But the Lord says, "I dispatch him against a people who anger me…" (vs 6). Similarly, when Peter on Pentecost day reminds the crowds before him that they crucified Jesus (and therefore they have to repent of that sin!), Peter makes a point of saying first that the crowds crucified Jesus "by God’s set purpose and foreknowledge" (Acts 2:23). You see: sufficient rain and too much rain, good crops and the devastation that comes from flooding come from God’s hand. So too, the thoughts of Osama bin Laden’s mind and the actions that resulted in New York come from God. Such is the extent of His control….

In a world that sees God as small, this is a point I need to press. The apostle Paul somewhere writes that God "works out everything in conformity with the purpose of His will"; that’s Eph 1:11. That purpose, says Paul in the same passage, is embodied in a "plan"; in the course of time He "works out everything in conformity with" the plan God ordained for each person before the foundation of the world. It’s because of God’s total control of all things that David says what he says in Ps 139. We read it: "All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be" (vs 16). That is: David pictures God as having a book in which God had written all the events that would happen in the course of David’s life. So: that David’s father would be Jesse of Bethlehem, that David would be the youngest of a long row of older brothers (and a couple would no doubt be bullies), that David would tend the sheep for his father, that on a given day a lion would come to snatch a sheep and David would kill the lion, that David would be anointed king when he was still a lad, that Saul would persecute him, that David would one day see Bathsheba bathing down below and commit adultery with her, that David would kill Urijah and months later confess his sin before Nathan – all of that and so much more were recorded in God’s book before a single one of these things happened. That’s the thrust of David’s words in Ps 139; all these things happened in David’s life because God had so ordained them to happen.

The implication for us today, beloved? If God "works out everything in conformity with the purpose of His will," then we are bound to confess that not just the bits and pieces of David’s life were recorded in God’s book but so are the details of our lives! In Jesus Christ, our sovereign Creator has us so securely in His hands that in our lives "leaf and blade, rain and drought, fruitful and barren years, food and drink, health and sickness, riches and poverty, [church struggles and personal struggles], indeed, all things, come not by chance but by His fatherly hand."

The question that jumps at us now, of course, is the one about human responsibility. The fact of the matter is that certain evil things have come upon us through the sins of people. Would our Lord’s Day now say that these people have no responsibility for their conduct?

In answer, let me first say this. Though God says in His Word that He is 100% sovereign over every detail of all life (my life included), the Lord also says that He holds each person 100% responsible for his sins. People are not animals; God created people in the beginning with responsibility for what they do. That is why every sinner needs Christ’s redeeming blood for every transgression he commits before God, and that’s equally why God has His Ten Commandments held before us time and time again; He holds us responsible. Those who flew those four planes on September 11 have all appeared before the judgment seat of God, and they all had to give account to God for what they did; they were responsible. Those who have hurt us in the past have also already appeared before God’s judgment seat to give account to Him for their transgressions, or they will still appear there; either way, God holds each person responsible for his deeds. You and I too, brothers and sisters, regardless the nature of our sins, secret or public, are responsible for what we did and ever will do, and will have to give account to God. I cannot emphasize the matter enough: all men are completely responsible for every sin we commit.

Then it’s true: my limited mind cannot fathom how God controls all things totally, including even my thoughts, and how I am yet responsible for every thought I think, every word I speak, every deed I perform. To my limited mind, God’s 100% sovereignty means that I’m a puppet on God’s strings, invariably dancing to God’s wishes – and therefore no more responsible than a puppet. But Almighty God speaks otherwise. So I am duty bound to accept what He in wisdom had revealed, and confess both God’s total sovereignty and my total responsibility. Probably the best I can do here is draw your attention to Article 13 of the Belgic Confession: [Read the first paragraph, Book of Praise, pg 449].

On this tension between God’s total sovereignty and man’s complete responsibility, there’s a second thing I have to say here. That’s this: when bad things happen to us, the Lord does not wish us to fix our attention on the people who did the evil to us; the Lord rather instructs us to recognise that these bad things have come to us by His hand – be it that God was pleased to use other sinners as tools to put these things on our path. Then yes, we may have to speak to the sinner concerned and urge his repentance as the Lord commands in Mt 18. But as we digest what happened to us God wants us first to acknowledge that this came from His hand. That’s also the reason why our Lord’s Day does not speak of people’s sins against us; in our Lord’s Day the church instead echoes the perspective that God has taught us in His word, and that perspective is to recognise that our Father in Jesus Christ has let these things happen in our lives.

That brings us to our second point:

The response befitting God’s children←⤒🔗

This is the point of Question & Answer 28 of our Lord’s Day. "What does it benefit us to know that God has created all things and still upholds them by His providence?" We’ve been speaking so far of bad things happening. The natural human response when bad things happen? We know it from experience. We focus on the hurt, and so our minds zero in on the person or persons who did the hurt to us. Feelings of betrayal overwhelm us, and with feelings of betrayal come feelings of distrust toward the offending party. Or we feel angry - at ourselves for letting it happen, and at others for doing it…. Then arise feelings of revenge, or bitterness, or cynicism…. I think older and younger of us can relate to these sorts of feelings; they’re so human, so predictable in the face of adversity people heap on us….

But these very human reactions, congregation, are not the responses God desires. These are the responses that come when we focus on people, but the Lord would have us lift up our eyes to heaven to where our Father in Jesus Christ rules all things sovereignly, totally. That is: in our reactions to what happens in our lives, the Lord God would have us take seriously that even evils come from His hand.

And who is He? Sure, He’s the almighty Creator of heaven and earth, in full control of all things. But He’s not a cold despot, brothers and sisters! Remember: this is the God we snubbed through our disobedience in Paradise, and so earned for ourselves His wrath, every manner of hurt, including the total rejection of hell. But our Creator "so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son" to save sinners from the wrath and damnation they deserve! That is: almighty God acted, He had mercy on sinners, and so reached down to us and gave His Son to be the propitiation for our sins – unworthy though we were. For Jesus’ sake, then, this Creator is our Father, who loves His children dearly.

This is the God, now, who unfolds in our life the counsel He has ordained from the beginning, including who our parents would be, whether our brothers would be jealous of us, what career we’d receive, whether we’d be hounded by our classmates, whether we’d see a bathing beauty and what thoughts would go through our mind at the sight. As God ordained every detail of David’s life, so God ordains every detail of our lives. More, this almighty God ordains every detail in perfect wisdom and in perfect love. No, I do not understand that, because my limited mind can’t wrap itself around the wisdom of God. More, I do not understand God’s ways with me because my sinful mind can’t wrap itself around the love of God – and definitely my sinful mind can’t wrap itself around His love when He has let painful adversity enter into my life. But this is His revelation in His word, and faith accepts what God says, acknowledges that Yes, my Father directs and controls all things in my life in perfect love and wisdom. Working with the reality of God’s identity in the painful circumstances of my life –He’s the almighty Creator who’s become my faithful Father in Jesus Christ- working with God’s identity produces patience in the midst of life’s painful adversities. We have so many questions: why did this have to happen?! And we’re so tempted to keep staring at the guy who hurt us, and let human-centered perspectives control our feelings – anger, distrust, bitterness, cynicism…. But, beloved of the Lord, acknowledging God’s sovereignty means that we look past the people who hurt us to the God who ordained long before my birth that I would be hurt – and so lifting our eyes off the earth and onto Him who controls all things. And acknowledging God’s fatherly love means that we look past the hurt He gave and focus instead on the fact that Father has His sovereign purpose in placing on our path the adversities He lays there.

For you see: it’s because He loves His people that the pain He gives is bearable. In love for their child, parents may have to compel their son to go to the dentist; not nice, but that’s love. Similarly, in love for their child, parents may have to discipline their child for his misbehavior; not nice for the child, but that’s love. And it’s an awareness of the parents’ love that makes the pain bearable for the child. So too with the Lord God. He loves us in Christ –look at the cross to get a picture of the depth of God’s love- and so in wisdom reaches into our lives with the trials we experience. If we forget who He is, if we don’t believe His love for us in Christ Jesus, our focus will invariably be on the hurt we feel, and therefore also on the people through whom this hurt has entered our lives. But God’s will is that we see His hand in all that happens, and believe that He provides me "with all things necessary for body and soul, and will also turn to my good whatever adversity He sends me in this life of sorrow" (Lord’s Day 9). In the words of our Lord’s Day: Father would have us be "patient in adversity."

In a time and manner of His choosing, brothers and sisters, our sovereign Father has reached into the lives of each of us with the difficulties we experience today. The Lord has done it, and now He watches carefully how we respond. He wants to see whether our response is driven by faith in Him –as in: we know ourselves safe in the hands of the God who loves us so deeply in Christ- or whether our response is driven by earthly feelings, as in pity for self or rage against another or cynicism with those in positions of power over us. With the reaction of patience and trust God is pleased, and He blesses it; with the reaction of bitterness or anger God is displeased, and He demands repentance.

Again, beloved, please do not misunderstand me. As I say this I am very aware that those who hurt us are 100% responsible before God for their sins. But I am responsible before God not first of all for what the other does; I am responsible before God first of all for what I do. And when my heavenly Father in wisdom places adversity on my path, of whatever nature and by whatever means, He holds me responsible for how I respond to that adversity.

In the last while my thoughts have gone repeatedly to Joseph. How wrong, how terribly, terribly wrong his brothers were to sell him!! And there’s no way that Joseph, as he trudged the long road to Egypt or was he was put up for sale at the slave market, that he understood the why and the wherefores of it all. But he, by God’s grace, did not become bitter. That’s to say: he did not stare at people - be it at himself and his problems, or at his brothers and their cruelty. He kept his eye on God and His promises, and so, when his brothers finally stood before him again in the famine and he told them who he was, he could tell them not to be angry with themselves or dismayed, for –he adds- "God sent me here before you to preserve life." How wonderfully, gloriously amazing! "Love covers a multitude of sins," says Paul, and it’s true; God’s love in Jesus Christ covers our sins, and that’s why Joseph could look past his brothers’ sins and fix his attention on God’s bigger picture.

Is it possible for sinful, hurt people to be patient in adversity? Is years of trouble not enough to wear anybody out? What, beloved, does the Lord say on the point? This: the same God who gives the strife we experience says that He gives patience in adversity. For this same God has poured out His Holy Spirit, and this Spirit works spiritual fruit in our hearts and lives. One of these fruits, says Paul in Gal 5, is patience.

So: can we be patient in adversity? Yes, beloved, yes! For your Father in Jesus Christ loves you so much that He has given you His Holy Spirit. So we can sing with David:

Wait for the Lord; be strong and undismayed.
The Lord is faithful. Why then be afraid?
Take courage, for His steadfast love is sure.
Wait for the Lord; His mercy shall endure Ps 27:6 – rhymed.

Amen.