Mystery of Providence Chapter 11 and 13

It is similar to a former chapter where there's not a lot of content, but there are verses, so we're gonna go through every single one of them. It is sword drill time again. Also, you may have noticed in the notes, it seems that things are backwards, because they are.

Chapter 13 seems to do best, actually, after chapter 10, and then chapter 11 does best before chapter 12. So that's what we're doing. We're doing 13, then 11, if that matters to you. It shouldn't matter to you much, though.

All right, so we're gonna start with the advantages of recording experiences of providence. After considering all of the benefits of recognizing God's providence, we should be heartily encouraged to be recording his providences.

This is almost a thesis statement for the latter half of this book, which is that. Now that we have gone through and understand all the different ways that providence benefits us, and not only benefits us directly, but benefits us upon our remembrance of it, especially as we remember last time, as it benefits us in difficult times, as it benefits us in understanding and reacting well to difficult times, and in understanding and reacting to our death well, it should be enough to cause us to start recording them.

And if we fail to start recording them, fail to consider what we've been doing, that may be something to bring to the Lord as well, why your heart is hard in this kind of matter. A quote that he mentioned, for want of collecting and communicating such observations, not only ourselves, but the church of God suffers loss and is impoverished.

So if you already weren't convinced, he tries to remind us that you are, in a sense, robbing your fellow brothers of something as well by not recording these things. That also implies that there is sharing of these providences, not just record.

The record has to be looked upon to be of any value. So we should be sharing these things. When anyone has met with some rare medicinal herb and accidentally discovered the virtues of it, he would post it up in some public place.

And so the physician attained his skill by a collection of those posted experiments and receipts. He went on to also try and say, this is not me saying that all knowledge that the saints have should be given to all people.

I would say in most cases, though, this is the case. We should be sharing knowledge that is worthy of being shared and able to be shared. And specifically, as he points out here, no one can really benefit from something if it is not made public and made easily accessible.

This is also really in line with like Dorian principle concepts where there is no benefit, there is a reduction of benefit to the word when it is locked behind something, when it is locked behind pay walls, when it's locked behind any kind of like retributive thing that you have to give for it.

And we should be thinking the same with this. We should be freely giving this to every believer that it's relevant to, that we have access to in our life, explaining to them what has been happening in life and what the Lord has been doing for us.

That's always something, when we especially meet new visitors to our church, we should be, we not only should be asking them why, like how they've been saved, but we should even be asking them just like what the Lord has done in their lives and being able to share those things from ours as well.

It's a way of being initially vulnerable to those who purport to be Christians. And even if they're not Christians, as we've seen through this book, he's often talking to people who are not saved, to the unregenerate.

And this is also a way of, it's a potentially a means of conversion. And if not, it's at least a means of heaping on understanding that they're deciding to throw away. And that's something that we have the right to do in some sense when rightly acting.

So some practical reasons to concretely record God's providences, concretely meaning physically, whether that be in bits or in lead or in ink. He's pointing out that we should actually be recording these, not just putting them in our memory.

He called our memory slippery. I think that's a good way of explaining it. Things slip out of our memory. They slip out of our reach often. And it's really on, you can't expect a human to be able to contain all that God has done for them.

New memories often erase old ones. And we may only remember the most significant while forgetting the majority. So a quality over quantity, when rather the quantity in this case is part of the quality, is that there is so much.

I really loved a quote from this chapter, from a guy who, I forget the name he gave and I didn't write it down, so here we are with the slippery memory. My memory never failed me in all my life, for indeed I durst never trust it.

So this guy's pointing out that you can't really have your memory fail you if you already assume it's not gonna do the job and you do something to rectify and fortify what you're doing to begin with. For those of us who work on documents, you use Google Docs because you can go through your revision history when you totally screw something up or those of us who program use something called version control to make sure that you can always see what has been done and rectify yourself based on the things that have been done.

We should really think about that for our lives as a whole is recognize the failing memory we do not necessarily have yet. It will happen. And so there are things worth recording, especially the providences of God.

And having a book to refer to is itself an object of treasured providences and an object for future encouragement. He pointed to Psalm 77, five for this. I consider the days of old the years long ago.

That's something that we can benefit from when we look at this object, we can ourselves and consider the days of old. We can consider those things from far away. So there's no failure of remembrance of these things.

It can help prevent reducing the value of prior providences for the newer providences ahead of us because we can recall the older, maybe even smaller providences were less likely to devalue them and to misremember and to misapply how they were given to us.

If we actually record them in their detail, we can remember then what the Lord was actually trying to give to us in that providence rather than assuming what that thing was for, misremembering what it was for and in a sense creating our own truth from that.

He said, know that your dangers have been as great and your fears no less formerly than now. I'm gonna repeat that. Know that your dangers have been as great and your fears no less formerly than now. So the dangers you've encountered, the fears that you have, they could only have been greater in the past, especially as a Christian in your sanctification process.

So you should be able to look back and see how the Lord has already saved you from great things so he can save you from a less great thing in the future and a less great thing afterwards, right? And make it as much your business to preserve the sense and value as the memory of former providences and that fruit will be sweet to you.

It's like I mentioned, you should remember everything about it qualitatively in those memories as much as you can. Don't just put down like a five-word blurb about what occurred. Try to really think about the context and meditate upon what God was doing for you in giving you that providence, not just he reconciled family.

He reconciled family members, but rather why did he reconcile these family members and what is he potentially working in me by doing that? And that was all for chapter 13. So we're gonna move on to chapter 11 now.

Notice 13 did not have much scripture. It's actually part of a postscript to the book. This is basically after the writing of the whole book. He wanted like a summary of really what you should come away with in this book.

And now back into the body of the text. Practical implications for the saints. His first corollary. God owns all that comes upon you from success and comfort to trouble and affliction. It is a great evil for us to not observe the good that happens to us as having come from his hand.

He references Hosea 2 .8 for this. And she, talking about Israel indirectly, and she did not know that it was I who gave her the grain, the wine, and the oil, and who lavished on her silver and gold, which they used for bail.

So pointing out that when we don't observe the good as coming from the Lord, it is a wicked thing that we have done. We claim it for ourselves, we ascribe it to the world, we ascribe it to individuals, anything like that.

It is wicked for us to not recognize God's hand also in our affliction, though. Looking at Isaiah 26 .11 first. Should've just typed. Gives you more time to find it. O Lord, your hand is lifted up, but they do not see it.

Let them see your zeal for your people and be ashamed. Let the fire for your adversaries consume them. And then Isaiah 1 .3. The ox knows its owner, and the donkey its master's crib. But Israel does not know, my people do not understand.

So Israel fails to recognize that they are servants of the Lord. If you've ever read Jeremiah, it is basically a constant scathing rebuke of this exact thing. Israel does not recognize who they are. They are completely, as he talks about them, they are stupid and unwilling to recognize him and to recognize how they have failed against him, how he's given them a covenant.

That's the same with us, in a sense, where he has given us a covenant, yet we do not recognize when he is disciplining us as he has told us he will do. In Scripture, he's told us he will give us good.

He's told us he will discipline us when we fail to follow his commands. And so it is wicked for us to both not recognize the good he has promised to us and when he gives it to us, and wicked to not accept the affliction and really work through that.

His second corollary, how great is God's condescension to you in doing all things for you, starting with Job 7, 17 through 18. What is man that you make so much of him and that you set your heart on him, visit him every morning, and test him every moment?

In Job 36, 7, he does not withdraw his eyes from the righteous, but with kings on the throne, he sets them forever, and they are exalted. So speaking about the righteous people, they are, in some sense, they're eternally set alongside the kings of the earth.

It's not that the kings of the earth are going to retain their kingliness in eternity, but rather the righteous as a whole will be in a special station before the Lord, and this itself is a condescension.

This is something that God is even bothering to give us. He even puts some apostles at the right and left hand of Christ, but those apostles being put there, they have not earned this thing. It is something that God is still gifting to those people, gifting to those individuals, and it's an extreme act of grace to give them any kind of station in eternity.

Isaiah 27, 3, I, the Lord, am its keeper. Every moment I water it, lest anyone punish it. I keep it night and day. So the Lord's speaking about, really, everything. He points it out as every moment I water it, lest anyone punish it.

I keep it night and day. He's speaking about everything that is within his grasp, so all of creation, all of reality, and especially those things that he cares for and that he is saving. Those are the things that he waters.

He protects them from everything else, right? And then Deuteronomy 33, 3. Yes, he loved his people. All his holy ones were in his hand, so they followed in your steps, receiving direction from you. So the Lord is giving direction to us that we should be receiving.

If we are being given direction, we don't recognize it. It's, again, a way of rejecting the good things that he's given, a way of rejecting the affliction that he's giving, and it's a way of rejecting his condescension to begin with, the thing that we did not deserve at all, the thing that he constantly gives in any of our supplication to him.

We should be coming to him with an open, hardened mind.

To that.

Third corollary, we are obligated to serve the Lord. A quote from John. Oh, that I could be to God what my hand is to me, namely, a serviceable, useful instrument. Puts out Isaiah 5, 1 -4. Let me sing for my beloved my love song concerning his vineyard.

My beloved had a vineyard on a very fertile hill. He dug it and cleared it of stones and planted it with choice vines. He built a watchtower in the midst of it and hewed out a wine vat in it. And he looked for it to yield grapes, but it yielded wild grapes.

And now, oh, inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah, judge between me and my vineyard. What more was there to do for my vineyard that I have not done in it? When I looked for it to yield grapes, why did it yield wild grapes?

He was speaking about his vineyard being the place that his beloved works within and how, in this case, how people have failed to work within that vineyard and how it displeases him greatly. So are we giving him the grapes he asked for or the wild grapes that he does not desire?

We see this even in a lot of the vineyard parables and vineyard stories of the New Testament from Christ. We speak often about the workers, the good workers, the faithless workers, the faithful workers, the proper use of talents, the proper use of the minas.

All of these are the same where he's looking for us to produce good works on his behalf. He's looking for us to produce, to do something that shows the favor and shows that we understand the favor he has given to us.

It is not that that thing is saving us at all, but those good works are coming out of this understanding of salvation, this desire to work for him well in the vineyard and not a desire to sit and do nothing with the time that he has given us or to ponder how we could have done better, but to simply do that thing better and to come to him with that.

He is our master, so he is one giving guidance. He is not a master who gives us direction and then walks away and is unconnected to us. He's one that we can come to for more understanding because we are serving him.

So in our service to him, we should expect a constant communication with him as well. I think a lot of us fail to do this well, potentially even within our work. I know for me, when I started out in my work, I wanted to solve things in isolation often, and I started to realize that that was a good way of not getting the thing done well and of not doing it in the way that my manager may have actually wanted, that my leads would have wanted.

Instead, it became an annoying bell in some sense where I constantly asked them what they actually wanted, got clarity from that. The Lord is present in the same kind of way. He wants to give us guidance and direction.

He's given us all of scripture to do such a thing and asks us to come to him in prayer constantly. Psalm 116 .12, what shall I render to the Lord for all his benefits to me? And that is that question that we should be asking all the time in our supplication to him, is how could we be benefiting him more?

What can we still be giving him? Because there is still something we haven't sacrificed to him in our time and in our efforts, in our souls, mind, heart, strength, all the things he's asking us for, we are not doing it perfectly.

So we should be asking how to do that better. Fourth corollary, do not distress the Lord, for he performs all things for his people. Isaiah 59 .1, behold, the Lord's hand is not shortened that it cannot save, or his ear dull that it cannot hear.

That's 59 .1, right?

So the Lord is hearing us, he's desiring to save us unlike the latent flowerians or any of the people who would think that salvation is a synergistic work between us and the Lord. The Lord is the one doing that saving, he is hearing everything that we speak of, everything that we ask for.

It's not that we're only listened to when we're in prayerful communication with him. But a prayerful communication is when we are ourselves recognizing properly that we're speaking to him, but we should have in our minds a recognition that he is hearing all things that we do.

And in the same way that he is doing all things that we encounter, he is working those for some good, and he wants us to actually think about and consider those things, how he's working for our good, and in what ways we can, again, recognize the providence of that thing.

Fifth corollary, for all tasks you undertake, seek God in prayer. It seems like as you're going through these corollaries, you can see how they're stacking on top of one another. If he's hearing us, if we're obligated to serve him, if we're obligated to do these things and to recognize him, then obviously we must be seeking him in prayer, for that is our only way of really receiving from him.

If he does not do something for you, you can never have that thing that you desire and labor for. Let's look at Ezekiel 36, 37. Thus says the Lord God, this also I will let the house of Israel ask me to do for them, to increase their people like a flock.

So it's that he is letting the house of Israel ask him, not that they're asking and he is letting that thing occur, but he is letting them even ask for the increase. So we should also be recognizing his sovereignty over this thing.

So he is sovereign over the initiation, he is sovereign over the answer, so we should be, of course, going to him for all these things. We should also recognize when the inkling hits our head, that we should be asking him about that thing, we shouldn't be delaying it, we shouldn't be reducing it to nothing.

The same with temptation, when we're tempted, do we come immediately to the Lord with it, do we come immediately to those who have been covenanted with us, and the Lord to actually walk through it, or do we let it fester, let it go?

Instead, we should recognize that he is allowing us to come to him and he's enabling that behavior to begin with so that we may increase. And the last corollary, we should be chiefly concerned with knowing how to please him.

John Flable mentions an observation from John Chrysostom here. It is a grave and weighty observation of Chrysostom, which for those who don't know, he's an early, early church father. Very, very many helpful writings from this guy.

Nothing should be grievous and bitter to a Christian, but to provoke the displeasure of God. Avoid that, and no affliction or trouble whatever can cast down such a prudent soul. But even as a spark is easily extinguished in the sea, so will the favor of God extinguish all those troubles.

So the first part of that was from Chrysostom. Nothing should be grievous and bitter to a Christian, but to provoke the displeasure of God. We spoke about this a lot last week, which is that our fear should be only towards a single object.

There's only one thing that we should have fear of, and that is the Lord himself. And so therefore, what we should be fearing is anything that, again, provokes his displeasure. And this is, and we should be able to apply what John Flable's pointing out here about the spark being extinguished by the sea.

There's plenty of metaphors in the scripture about the sea also being this chaotic entity, but it's a chaotic entity that the Lord controls as shown through the calming of the storm with Christ. We recognize that he is in control of these great and powerful forces because God is the greatest and most powerful force.

And so he should, just by his nature and by recognition of that nature applied in our lives, that should be extinguishing all of our fears that are not directed directly towards him. Therefore, we should be, as he put it, fearing nothing but sin.

Sin is the only thing that should bring us any kind of fear because in the end, that sin is itself, like when we fear it, we are fearing that displeasure of God. We are not fearing really just what the sin does.

We often frequently desire the sin, but we should be fearing sin because it is, in a sense, just fearing the displeasure of God. And his last thing that he gives us before we leave tonight, study nothing so much as how to please God.

This is, I think, what the recent sermon series on motivations for good works is really trying to beat into us in a sense, which is that, hopefully I'm speaking well for Conley then, which is that we should be studying nothing more than the different ways that we can benefit from our salvation in glorifying Christ and being glorified as the church.

We have the salvation already. Even the remembrance of that salvation and the further implications of how it affects our life should be the main subject of study for our lives. There's so much more that we can enjoy in this earth as well, but they cannot overshadow that which God has gifted us already.