1689 2nd LBCF Chap 5

Divine Providence and the Logic of the Confession

Okay, chapter 5 is Divine Providence and here's chapter, paragraph 1. I just want to show you again, notice the cogency, the logic of how they put the confession together. We've looked at Scripture, why Scripture?

Because that's our foundation, that's how we know what's anything about who God is. Then we looked at God in the Holy Trinity, then we looked at God's decree, then we looked at creation, all right, creation, and now we look at God's providence, all right.

Providence is God's working out of his decree in his creation. That's why it's chapter 5, all right. So let's look at the first paragraph. God, the good Creator of all things, in his infinite power and wisdom, does uphold, direct, dispose, and govern all creatures and things, from the greatest even to the least, by his most wise and holy providence, to the end for which they were created, according to unto his infallible foreknowledge, and the free and immutable counsel of his own will, to the praise of the glory of his wisdom, power, justice, infinite goodness, and mercy.

Okay, basically what it's saying is this. God has decreed everything that is going to come to pass. We looked at that in chapter 2, all right. We spent a good deal of time on that because that's one of the most difficult doctrines for people to accept and to understand.

How does he enact his decree? How does he cause his decree to come to pass by his providence? Okay, so in other words, his providence is God's working out of what he has already decreed and that it will come to pass, all right.

That's why we do not believe in coincidence. We believe in providence. When something happens, you know, there's always a reason for it because it is all part of God's working out of his decree, all right.

So now notice it says that he directs, disposes, governs all creatures and things, everything that happens. You can think of several verses of Scripture that would apply to this. Not a sparrow falls from the sky without God's foreknowledge.

Why? Because he has decreed that it's going to happen, all right. So, and it's all according to his infallible foreknowledge, the free and immutable counsel of his own will. He does not look down the corridor of time to see what's going to happen and then he decrees it or causes it to happen.

That does violence to the concept that God is sovereign, all right. He doesn't do things because he knows that's what the outcome is going to be. The outcome turns out to be what it is because he has decreed it and a lot of Christians today put that backwards, okay.

So, and again, it's all to the praise of his glory, wisdom, power, justice, and infinite goodness and mercy. Any chess players in here? Everybody plays chess? I know you play chess, come on.

Been a while.

Yeah. All right. You understand how difficult that particular game is, especially if you're playing with somebody who's really good because how many moves ahead can, does the normal person think? A couple of moves and yet some of the grandmasters are planning like 20 moves ahead, all right.

I can't even fathom that. I got frustrated. I don't even, checkers is my limit. I don't play chess, all right. It hurts my head, you know. But God has everything worked out completely and infallibly from the beginning of creation to the end of time and he can do that because he is sovereign and he has an infinite mind, okay.

And that's why it's foolish for us to question God. Remember, remember in Job when Job starts talking and his friends are talking and whatnot and what does God say to him? Who are you? You know, to answer back to me or to question me, you know.

It's foolishness, all right. So, providence is God's working out of his decree. There's some scripture proofs, all right, that talks about this very, very clearly and let's look here at paragraph two.

God as First Cause and the Role of Second Causes

Although in relation to the foreknowledge and decree of God, the first cause, all things come to pass immutably and infallibly, so that there is not anything befalls any by chance or without his providence, yet by the same providence he orders them to fall out according to the nature of second causes, either necessarily, freely, or contingently.

All right, what does that mean? That means the first cause of everything is God, okay. Did we go over in this class that I read from, from 1 Chronicles 10? Did I read that? Who killed Saul? Okay, well, you know, obviously some people weren't here, so we'll look at that in just a minute.

All right, God's the first cause of all things, yet he works them out by second causes, all right. In other words, and the second cause does not negate the first cause being God. Turn in your Bibles to 1 Chronicles 10, because this, this one passage, I think, is one of the best to show how this works together, all right.

If you look at 1 Chronicles 10, all right, this is where Saul is battling the Philistines. It's right at the end of his, his reign. David has already been anointed king, all right, and in verse 4 of 1 Chronicles 10, it says, then Saul said to his armor-bearer, draw your sword and thrust me through with it, otherwise these uncircumcised will come and abuse me.

But his armor-bearer would not, for he was greatly afraid. Therefore Saul took his sword and fell on it. All right, so if I ask the question, who killed Saul? Who killed Saul? That's a real question.

Somebody give me an answer. Well, but based on this verse, Saul. All right, go to the end of the chapter, all right, verse 13. So Saul died for his trespass, which he committed against the Lord, because the word of the Lord which he did not keep, and also because he asked counsel of a medium, make an inquiry of it, and did not inquire the Lord.

Therefore he killed him and turned the kingdom to David, the son of Jesse. Same chapter, this is not a mistake, all right. This shows first and second cause. Who ultimately killed Saul? Russell is absolutely right, God.

But what was the means and method? His own suicide, okay. But make no mistake, God had decreed that Saul was going to die and that he was going to die for his transgressions against the law, and then he used Saul's own sin to carry it out.

God uses even the sinful actions of sinful people to accomplish his purpose. Another example, and I think we said this in the same class a couple of weeks ago. What is the greatest crime in the history of mankind?

Greatest crime, greatest injustice? Nobody? What do you think? That would be the second one. Greatest crime in the history of the world? Crucifixion of Jesus, right? Perfectly innocent, never committed any sin, never committed, there was no reason for anybody ever to take an offense at him legally, morally, because he never did anything wrong, all right.

So it's the greatest crime in the history of the world, all right. However, what was the result of that incident? Salvation of God's people. God decreed, so who, according to Isaiah, who put Jesus to death?

God. It pleased the Father, all right. Well, so he's the first cause, who's the second cause? The Jews, the wicked rulers, and Peter says that in his sermon. He says that Jesus was delivered up by the predetermined plan of God, all right, but it was carried out at the hands of wicked men.

In other words, they were responsible. So even though they were carrying out the will of God the Father, they were still to be punished for their crime, all right, first and second causes, okay. Does that make sense to everybody?

Okay, so nothing befalls anybody by chance, it's by providence. We don't always understand that. In fact, it was funny, yesterday I had to run up to a shopping center not too far from here, and I pulled into parking lot, I went to the store, I come walking out, and as I'm walking over to my car, I look and parked right next to it is my wife's car.

She had no idea I was there, I had no idea that she was going to be there, and we're just going into two different stores. Now, I don't know why, and I'm not sitting around thinking there's got to be some deep reason why we, you know, quote coincidentally, unquote, you know, ran into each other, but it's no coincidence.

It's by God's providence that that happened, and somehow along the line, it works out for his glory. But those little things like that, we call them coincidence, but it's not, it's by God's providence.

There's some particular reason, okay. And again, it's working out by second causes, either necessarily, freely, or contingently. In other words, we don't really know how and why God works all these things out, but he does.

Okay, and there's some scripture proofs for that. Paragraph three, God in his ordinary providence makes use of means, yet is free to work without, above, or against them at his pleasure. In other words, one of the, one of the means, what's one of the biggest means that God uses to bring about his purpose here on earth?

Let me ask, let me put it that way. What's one of the greatest means that God uses? His people, his church, the prayer. A lot of people say, if God is sovereign, why pray? Because that's the means that God has determined to bring about his purpose.

And what's another means? Preaching of the gospel. The only way that people, in this new covenant, the only way that people are going to be saved is by the preaching of the gospel. It's not through visions.

It's not through dreams. The, you know, that's, that's a long gone, Hebrews tells us. So, it's the preaching of the gospel. If you don't preach the gospel, nobody's going to get saved. It's clearly what the scripture says.

Romans 10 makes that abundantly clear, all right. That's why we are so concerned about sending missionaries, preaching the gospel, making sure the gospel is preached from this pulpit, you know, equipping the saints to, to answer questions.

That's why we have so many different Bible studies and prayer meetings and things like, because those are the means God uses. All right. And it's sometimes hard for us to see because we'd like to be rational and cogent, but how does prayer work?

I don't know how it works, but that's what he tells us. So, that's why we pray. In fact, I once preached a message titled, if God is sovereign, why pray? And it took a whole message to try to answer that question, you know, logically and cogently.

But the number one reason is because he tells us to, but it's, it's the means that he uses to accomplish his purpose. All right. And he's also, yeah, he's free to work above and beyond them. God can heal the sick just like that, if he so desires.

All right. God, you know, at various times throughout the, both the old and new testaments, God worked independently of second causes. In fact, sometimes he used the wind. That's second causes as well.

He uses nature to accomplish his purpose. Okay. There's some more scripture for paragraph three, paragraph four. The almighty power on searchable wisdom and infinite goodness of God so far manifest themselves in his providence that his determinate counsel extends itself even to the first fall and all other sinful actions, both of angels and men, that not by bare permission, which also he most wisely and profoundly bounded and otherwise orders and governs in a manifold dispensation to his most holy ends.

Yet so as the sinfulness of their acts proceeds only from the creatures, not from God, who being most holy and righteous, neither is, nor can be the author or approver of sin. This goes along with the section on the decree, which is hard for people to understand.

Even though God decreed sinful actions to happen, those sinful actions don't emanate from God. They come from the creature himself. He uses the sinful disposition of his creatures to bring about the sinful acts that are ultimately going to work around for his glory.

Hence the crucifixion of Christ. Can you explain that portion of.

The scripture? I think it's in Kings where Ahab and Jehoshaphat, you know, going against that particular army, the Assyrians or something like that. And God was taking counsel with the angels. And he said, who can deceive Ahab for us?

Right. Some evil spirit presented himself and said, I'll put a lying spirit in Ahab.

I always struggled with that one in regards to this. God will use even evil spirits. The scriptures, several places talks about an evil spirit from the Lord. All right. They are working under the direction of God, but the deceit comes from themselves, not from God.

The sin is never from, it's never the authorship is from God. All right. So even in that portion of scripture, you talk about God says, who can do this? All right. And the lying spirit says, I'll be happy to do that.

And God uses that sinful disposition. You know, it's, it's tough. It's tough, but we, we can't go beyond what the scripture, when the scripture teaches something, even though it's tough. And that's why a lot of people try to avoid those portions of scripture, which we should not.

We cannot because it's true. God uses sinful people. Well, he says it, look at, look at the Exodus. Did I not raise up Pharaoh for this very purpose? He raised up Pharaoh to persecute his people. Another one, I think, and I think it was the Assyrian army.

He raises up the Assyrian army to come against Israel because Israel is to be judged. Right. And they conquer Israel. All right. Do you remember what he did to the Assyrian army? He punished them. Now they carried out his will, but he punished them.

Do you know why he punished them? Because of their motives. Their motive was not to please God. Their motive was for themselves to plunder Israel. All right. So their actions were wicked, but God used even their wicked actions to accomplish his holy purpose.

Okay. It's a difficult concept, isn't it? But that's what he does. And yet he does so in such a way that he does not become the author of sin. He uses the predisposition of their own hearts to do so. Who, I mean, you see that even in the crucifixion of Jesus.

He didn't have to put it in anybody's heart. It was already there to do away with Jesus. Okay. All right. There's scripture proofs for that same paragraph. The most righteous, wise, righteous, and gracious God does oftentimes leave for a season his own children to manifold temptations and the corruptions of their own hearts, to chastise them for their former sins or to discover unto them the hidden strength of corruption and deceitfulness of their hearts, that they may be humbled and to raise them to a more close and constant dependence for their support upon himself and to make more watchful against all future occasions of sin and for other just and holy ends so that whatsoever befalls any of his elect is by his appointment for his glory and for their good.

Another tough one. Okay. Something bad happens to you. What is our tendency? Why God? All right. It's for his purpose. He sometimes, it might just be to remove arrogance from us. In fact, I'm actually preaching a little bit on this this morning, a related topic to this, where what is Jesus telling his disciples at the end of that discourse before he's arrested?

All right. He says, oh, now you believe? Really? Okay. Soon you're going to be scattered. They're going to run. Remember, they're all asserting their faithfulness to him, etc. And what happens when he's arrested?

They take off like rats deserting a sinking ship. Okay. And God allows that. Because what happens when they come back together and are filled with the Holy Spirit? They're a different group of men. Sometimes he allows things to happen to his people.

All right. For a testing of the faith so that you know. One of the biggest problems with Christians, all right, is overconfidence. I see it all the time, is overconfidence. If we neglect coming to prayer, we neglect the means of grace, we neglect Christian fellowship.

Okay. Think, well, I don't need it. You know, I know what I believe, and that's that. And what happens soon is, next thing you know, you're drifting further and further away. So here, what he's saying is that, you know, it's by God's providence that whatever comes into your path.

We quote Romans 8 .28 a lot, especially as being Calvinist. For we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those that love him and are called according to his purpose. Okay. But do we really understand it?

Because first time tragedy happens, you say, well, why? Because he's working something out in your life. And it may not be what you want. It might be something that you definitely don't want. But it's for a purpose.

And it's all according to his most wise and holy counsel. Okay. Let's see if we can move through this. There's some scripture proofs. We'll finish this chapter today. As for those wicked and ungodly men whom God, the righteous judge for former sin, does blind and harden from them, he not only withholds his grace, whereby they might have been enlightened in their understanding and wrought upon their hearts, but sometimes also withdraws the gift which they had and exposes them to such objects as their corruption makes occasion of sin.

And with all, it gives them over to their own lusts and temptations of the world and the power of Satan, whereby it comes to pass that they harden themselves under those means, which God uses for the softening of others.

In other words, God, all God has to do is just withdraw his hand. One of the most neglected doctrines of scripture that you see today, even in reformed churches, is the doctrine of common grace. And I preached a whole series on common grace a couple of years ago.

And maybe it's time I do it again, because it's a doctrine that we really need to come to understand. The only thing that keeps us from, or mankind, sinful man, from becoming utterly depraved. Remember, we believe in total depravity, not utter depravity.

Man is not as depraved as he possibly could be, all right, is the common grace of God. God gives grace to even the wicked to keep them from being as bad as they possibly could be. And that too is for the sake of the elect.

I live in a very nice neighborhood, all right, where, you know, as far as I know, and I'm reasonably certain that I'm the only Christian on the block. I know my neighbor, but I have a very good relationship with my neighbors.

It was the type of neighborhood where people watch out for each other. You know, if somebody came to my house that looked suspicious, I'd have neighbors knock, you know, asking them what they're doing there.

We borrow stuff back and forth, you know, it's a very nice neighborhood. And I have Christians. Why? Because God's common grace is on them. And so we have, for the sake of better words, we have nice pagans, you know, and that too is the work of God, all right.

But so all God has to do is lift his hand. And quite frankly, I believe this is what we're seeing in our country today. This nation was under God's common grace because of the influence of the church.

You know, there was definitely a Christian influence. I'm not going to say that this was a Christian nation, so to speak, but we definitely were under the influence of the church and God's common grace was abundant on us, okay.

Now as we're seeing the nation turning away, legislating God out of everything, one, you know, can't even mention it, what happens now? Look at what's happening to our nation. Threats from outside our border, from inside our border, the corruption is unbelievable.

God's lifting his hand, okay. All right, and the scripture proves for that. And then the last paragraph of this, and there's the proofs. As the providence of God does in general reach to all creatures, so after a more special manner, it takes care of his church and dispose of all things to the good thereof.

That's just clear. I mean, while God does watch the rain come, falls on both the wicked and the righteous, so much more are we under his divine providence and he will work all things together for our good.

And there's the proofs of that. Final thoughts? No? Good.