Pt.9 LBCF Chapter 5: Of Divine Providence

Okay. Chapter 5 of the Confession of Faith is of divine providence. And if you're going to follow along, there's 7 paragraphs in this chapter.

Okay? And the chapter can be divided into 2 major parts. And again, if you want to follow up on this, the divisions

I'm getting are from Sam Waldron's book, Modern Exposition of the 1689.

So if you have any problem with the way it's divided, call Sam, don't call me. All right.

Part 1 is an overview and a summary. Basically, the whole first chapter is just an overview.

What is providence? So it's an overview and a summary. That's paragraph 1.

Paragraph 2, which is the rest of the chapters, I'm sorry, the rest of the sections, that's 2 through 7, is concerns about the doctrine.

And by concerns, I don't mean we're worrying about it, but what are the ramifications of it and how do we answer questions concerning the doctrine of providence?

Now, the doctrine of providence is closely related to the doctrine of God's decree in chapter 3.

Okay? And you have to keep all of the previous chapters in mind as we go through this.

Remember, why did we start chapter 1? Why was that on the scriptures? Because that's our epistemology.

What do we know about God? What do we know about his plan and everything else? It's all given to us in the scriptures, and that's why we start there.

Then we had the doctrine of God, right? Then the doctrine of decree, God's decree.

Then the chapter on creation is the beginning or the commencement of God's decree being worked out in time and history.

The decree of God is, you can look at it this way, is like a blueprint or a plant.

Don't you laugh at me. He loves it when I make a mistake. All right? The decree of God is like the blueprint or the plan.

Providence is the carrying out of the plan in the course of history. All right?

The decree takes place in eternity, but providence takes place in history.

So if you keep that in mind, I think it might make it easier to understand the doctrine of God's providence.

So the overview in the summary, it starts off, and I'm going to break it down as we have with the other sections.

All right? It starts by giving you the author of providence, God. God, the good creator of all things.

He is the author of providence. As soon as you start talking about providence, you have to understand that this is

God working out his decree. All right? So the first chapter gives us,

I'm sorry, the first section gives us who the author is, and it gives us the foundation of providence, his infinite power and wisdom.

Okay? God is able to work out his decree because of his infinite power and wisdom.

Okay? Just seems to make sense, right? What's the essence of providence?

He does uphold, direct, dispose, and govern. Oh, by the way, I'm not going to be reading this in the old

English. I'm going to put it up in the original, but he does uphold. I get all tongue -tied if I start doing doth and with and super stuff, and no,

I can't do that. All right? So if it's a little bit different, it's okay.

He does uphold, direct, dispose, and govern. That's the idea of what his providence is.

Everything that happens, remember, we started with the decree. Everything that happens, happens because God has decreed it to happen.

When we look at providence, providence is how God makes things to happen in his creation.

All right? So he upholds, directs, disposes, and governs. The object of providence, all creatures and things, from the greatest to the least.

Remember R .C. Sproul was, I think he was one who originated the saying that there's not one random molecule in the entire created universe, that everything is under the direct control of God and under God's providence.

All right? So you see the object of his providence. The nature of providence, by his most wise and holy providence.

His providence is wise and holy. Okay? There's no equivocation in his providence.

God never looks down at what is going on in his world and says, oh, I didn't mean for that to happen.

All right? Well, I mean, we chuckle at that, but there is theology out there coming from pulpits that basically says exactly that.

All right? But if we understand God's providence, no, it's his most wise and holy.

Not only is it wise, but it is holy. It is good. It is righteous.

It is just. Okay? So nobody can look at God and say, well, you know, this was bad.

No, you can't do that. Not according to what the scripture says. The compatibility of providence to the end for which they were created.

Well, you're going to see this over and over again in this chapter. And that is that everything that God has created is going to work out perfectly to the end for which

God created it. All right? Follow that. There is nothing that is going to go outside of God's decree.

And we're going to see how he does that to a certain degree. I mean, obviously we can't get into the details of how he carries things out because so much of how he carries out his providence is a mystery to us.

We must always keep in mind Deuteronomy 29, 29. The secret things belong to the

Lord. If it's not specifically revealed to us, we are to let that go.

But the things that are revealed, those are the things that we are to study. That's why we have Bible studies and we are to read and to grasp as much as we can, the essence of what is in his word, because that's talking all about his plan and his purposes.

All right? Now, the determining causes of God's providence, God's mind according to his infallible foreknowledge.

Now, I hope I don't have to spend too much time on this because you know what the

Arminian does with foreknowledge. Okay? They twist it. No, God's foreknowledge is not

God looking down the corridor's time and seeing what's going to happen and that's what he's going to decree. God's foreknowledge is he knows everything that's going to happen because he has decreed it to happen.

And so it's just the fulfilling of his decree. All right? That's why he has his providence is according to his infallible foreknowledge.

There's never a mistake in his world. Everything he does is perfect and will be worked out according to his purpose.

Now we're going to get into some of the other things about sin and actions and whatnot in a little bit. And God's will and the free immutable counsel of his own will.

God doesn't change anything based upon or contingent upon anything that man could do, would do, will do.

It's all according to the will of God. What he desires to take place is what is going to take place.

And the goal of providence to the praise of the glory of his wisdom, power, justice, infinite goodness, and mercy.

Okay? In other words, this should be like second nature to us as we form.

What is the chief end of man? To glorify God, to enjoy him forever. Everything that happens in this world, all of the things that God is going to providentially bring to pass, is to the praise of the glory of his wisdom, his power, his justice, infinite goodness, and mercy.

Okay? All right. Now that's part one.

That's just the first chapter, the first section. Now remember the first section is the overview and you'll see this consistently in the confession that usually there might be a few exceptions, but usually that first section, the first paragraph in any particular chapter of the confession is a summary and an overview.

Not always, but usually. And that's what we've seen. So we've just now laid out the framers of our confession, laid out what providence is.

Now they're going to get into an explaining how some of these things work out. So while we're looking, the part two is the relation of providence to the use of means.

Okay. And it starts off in paragraph two. In fact, the relation of providence to use of means is specifically paragraph two, which itself is broken into two parts.

All right. First one is a concession. All right. And this is what the confession says.

Although in relation to the foreknowledge and decree of God, the first cause of all things come to pass immutably and infallibly so that there is not anything befalls any by chance or without his providence.

Now, what does that mean? If it happened, it's been decreed by God and brought about by his providence infallibly.

Okay. We've been talking, in fact, I was talking with Jerry just before the study tonight, and there are so many people in Christian churches that are looking at what's going on now.

And they'll look at even this pandemic that we're going through and say, well,

God is not directly involved in this. But this is just one of the consequences of living in a sin curse world.

That flies in the face of the decree and the providence of God. And our confession does such a great job of enumerating what it is.

And this sentence here, this shows you clearly, this is not by chance.

We're going to get in a little bit later about sinful acts and whatnot, but it doesn't matter what it is.

If it's happened, it's by God's design. Okay.

Or without his providence. So in other words, God's providence is behind everything that is happening in this world today.

Now, I just want to pause. I hadn't planned on saying this. But this, if you think about this, all right, this has tremendous ramifications for the church.

All right. If you understand that everything that is happening is under the control and guidance of almighty

God to bring about his purpose and his plan, then what are you worried about? Now, don't get me wrong.

I'm not saying this is a reason to sit back and say, okay, surah, surah. That's fatalism.

And we'll actually talk about that a little bit later. But so notice, there's the concession. This is what it's saying.

Nothing is going to happen in this world that God has decreed apart from his providence.

The second part of that is an assertion. And that's the second half of paragraph two. 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 that's saying is while God is always the first cause, he uses second causes to bring about his providence.

That means he uses us. He uses nature. He uses natural disasters.

He uses all kinds of things to bring about his purpose. And what he's saying, what the confession is saying here is that they're not inconsistent with each other.

Even though God decrees something, he brings it about providentially. He uses second causes to bring those things about.

Now, the tension is shown in this paragraph. The predetermined plan of God is carried out freely and necessarily by the actions of men or other created forces.

All right. Now, I'm going to give you just three examples. Remember, one of the things that I mentioned when we first began the study of the confession is,

I'm not going to defend the confession. That's not my purpose.

All right. I mean, there's room for that and everything else. But my purpose in going through this is to just so that everybody knows what the confession says.

All right. And if you have any, if you come up with any issues that you would like to discuss, we can do that privately or maybe even have a class on it.

But I'm not going to try to defend it. And so like these three examples that I'm going to show you are not to try to prove this, just to demonstrate it to you.

All right. So I'm going to use three specific examples. First, the apostle

Paul being shipwrecked. Remember when the apostle was on his way to Rome and a storm comes up and they're shipwrecked.

All right. And do you remember what happened? Well, Paul says this, for this very night, an angel of the

God to whom I belong and whom I serve stood before me saying, do not be afraid, Paul, you must stand before Caesar and behold,

God has granted you all those who are sailing with you. Right. Paul gets a word from God, direct revelation, being an apostle, he gets direct revelation and God tells him, don't worry,

Paul, you're going to make it to Rome and you're not going to lose one of the people on board the ship. So what does

Paul do? Paul sits back, lights up a cigarette and says, I don't have anything to worry about. Paul said to the centurion, remember they were going to, they were going to leave the ship.

All right. He says, unless these men remain in the ship, you yourselves cannot be saved.

Paul understands that even though God has decreed it and has given him the promise, you still have to do the things that you have to do to ensure that it's going to come through.

God's decree of God's providence does not negate man's responsibility. Otherwise you got a problem here.

And here you have a perfect example with Paul. He gets the word, you will be saved. So will everybody else.

But he said, but now he's got to convince the centurion, don't let those men leave or you're all going to die.

There's the tension. All right. Second one, Micaiah prophesies to Ahab, you're not going to make it.

All right. Micaiah says, if indeed you return safely, the Lord has not spoken by me.

I mean, those are some strong words. Can you imagine being the King getting ready to go out to battle? And, uh, and that's why he didn't really like Micaiah too much.

All right. All right. And so what happens now?

Now this is a great example of God's providence. Now a certain man drew his bow at random.

Okay. And struck the King of Israel in the joint of the armor. So he said to the driver of his chariot, turn around and take me out of the fight for I'm severely wounded.

And of course he dies. All right. The random that's sarcasm.

The man who drew the bow had no idea that he was going to take the

King out, but God used his arrow to accomplish it. That's the second example of providence.

Third, who killed Saul? Those of you who've been around for a while, you know, this is one of my favorites.

I use this all the time. Who killed Saul? Saul said to his armor bearer, draw your sword and thus 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. Saul committed suicide.

Same chapter, just a few verses down. 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 has counsel of a meeting, 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. Perfect example.

God ordered that Saul should die for his sin.

Very specific. It's given to us. It's revealed to us. But what is the means?

Saul's disobedient heart himself. His armor bearer had more fear of God than Saul did.

Okay. All right. So relation to the providence, to the use of means, we've looked at a concession and assertion, and now we're going to look at paragraph three, and this is called a qualification.

God in his ordinary providence makes use of means, yet is free to work without, above and against him at his pleasure.

All right. What this is saying, and this is very important, paragraph, what this paragraph is saying is while the normal course of things, in the normal course of the daily routine of men,

God uses means. Most of today, all of the actions that we had, did anybody have angelic visitors intervene for them?

Not that you know of. Or were there any miracles, you know, people raised from the dead?

No, because in the normal course of things, God, things go along according to the physical and scientific and mathematical laws that God has built into this universe.

However, God can use above and against the normal course of things at his pleasure.

In other words, miracles can take place. Okay. And that's the whole purpose, and that's why it's, you know,

Sam called it a qualification, because just because God does things this way normally, doesn't mean that he's required to do it all the time.

He is free to suspend laws, to go against his, you know, the physical laws, and to do things that we would consider to be supernatural.

Okay. So again, that's a very important paragraph. By the way,

I think this chapter, chapter five,

God's providence, could be one of the most important chapters. Well, they're all important, but what

I'm trying to say is misunderstanding this will have ramifications in how you live your life.

And I think this is where a lot of people go wrong. So many people, Christians, everybody, if you're, you're hard pressed to find a

Christian church, an evangelical church, that doesn't assert they believe in the sovereignty of God, they all claim it.

But if you don't understand divine providence, you're going to negate the sovereignty of God. And that's what we see going on all around us, constantly, not just through this pandemic.

Now it's become manifold, that churches, you can see which churches really adhere to the sovereignty and understand the sovereignty of God and God's decree, because we see how

God is working it out. And when somebody says, oh, God has nothing to do with this, they're going against God's decree and his providence, which has an effect on how sovereign is he in your thinking.

Okay. All right. Now we're going to, now what the confession does, and again,

I hope you see, I just love working through this confession. Every time I go through it, I marvel at the wisdom that God gave to the men who sat down and actually put this confession together because they do it so logically and so cogently.

We've got the overview. Then we have an assertion, you know, the qualification, the assertion, and then the exemption, so to speak.

Now, the next paragraph is going to talk about the relation of providence to the fact of sin.

All right. And the paragraph four talks about sin in general. Okay.

This is paragraph four, part of it. You notice I got a little continue down there. I did that so I wouldn't forget that there was more.

The almighty power, unsearchable wisdom, and infinite goodness of God so far manifest themselves in his providence that his determined counsel extends itself even to the first fall.

All right. See what he's saying? See what the confession is saying? God's providence was active when

Adam and Eve fell. Their fall was decreed by God and carried out in his providence.

And you can do a whole study on that, how God providentially brought all of those things to pass.

So who was at fault in the fall? Was it God? No. It was

Adam. Okay. And all other sinful actions, both of angels and men, and that not by a bare permission, which also he most wisely and powerfully bounds, and otherwise orders and governs in a manifold dispensation to his most holy ends.

We'll continue in just a minute. Notice too, angels and men.

Okay. So a lot of churches out there that are teaching, they're teaching about the cosmic battle between good and evil, and they pit

God and Satan as though they were co -equal rivals. All right.

The rebellion of Satan was decreed by God, but the responsibility falls at the feet of Satan.

Okay. All right. It continues. Yet so as the sinfulness of their acts proceeds only from the creatures and not from God, who being most holy and righteous, neither is nor can be the author or approver of sin.

Okay. We see this all throughout the

Old Testament, where this is clearly manifested. What would happen, remember, the sin cycles begins in judges, and we see that kind of throughout the whole history of Israel.

Israel is obedient to a certain point, then they get disobedient.

What does God do? Raises up an army. One of their surrounding armies could be Babylon. It could be the

Assyrians. And what do they do? They come and they carry them off into captivity.

But then what does God do? He punishes them for doing that because their motivation wasn't to accomplish

God's purpose. They had sinful motivations for it. All right. So any sinful acts, you can't say

God is the author of sin. Okay. Because that falls, as it says, to the creatures, not from God.

Why? Because God is most holy, righteous. He cannot be the author of sin. Okay.

How about sin in his children? That's paragraph five. The most wise, righteous, and gracious God does oftentimes leave for a season his own children to manifold temptations and the corruptions of their own heart.

And then it gives some examples to chasten them for their former sins, to discover them into the hidden strength of corruption, the 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 them 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 appointment for his glory and their good.

You following what that says? If it happens to you, if you're a child of God, bad things happen to you.

And believe me, if you're living in this world, bad things are going to happen to you. There's a lot of bad people out there.

But if something bad does happen to you, it has been permitted by God according to his providence for a specific purpose.

Okay. And we're going to talk. I'm going to not comment anymore on that now because just before we close,

I'm going to put another slide up, which will cover all of that. We can discuss that a little bit more. But that's important because in fact, our brother

Dave just sent out an email today talking about contentment. Remember the apostle

Paul in Philippians 4 talks, I have learned the secret of being content. I know how to get along with a little.

I know how to get along with a lot, but I've learned the secret of being content in all things, no matter what my state.

Okay. How can Paul say that? Because he understands whatever comes into his path is at the hand of God and he's got to learn from it.

And even this, with this pandemic, now it's affected all of us one way or another.

Some people it's affected financially, some people in other ways, it's affected us as a church.

All right. And one of the things that we need to do as a church is evaluate what is

God teaching us through this? Why has this come into our path? And if we're not doing that, then we're missing an opportunity.

Okay. All right. Then paragraph six talks about sin in the ungodly.

What does the confession say about that? As for those wicked and ungodly men, whom God as 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 gifts which they had and exposes them to such objects as the corruption makes occasion of sin.

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

God uses for the softening of others. You ever notice how two people can go through virtually the same circumstance?

One hardens his heart and the other repents. It's the providence of God.

All right. I mean, this is, do you see how important this is?

This doctrine is eminently practical. Well, all doctrine is eminently practical.

You see how practical this is in our attitudes. Okay. So sin in the ungodly,

God uses the sin in the ungodly for a variety of purposes. And we come down to the last paragraph, which is the relationship of providence to the care of the church.

Now this affects us most directly. As the providence of God does in general reach to all creatures.

All right. Now we've seen that in the first six paragraphs, God's providence affects every single creature, not just humans, but even animals, the created world, everything is affected by God's providence.

So after a more special manner, it takes care of his church and disposes of all things to the good thereof.

Whatever happens in this world, God is using for the good of his church.

You follow that? When bad things happen, those bad things will turn around and be good for the church.

That's what this doctrine is saying. All right. And again, there's all kinds of scripture references.

If you, you know, you can get, everybody should have a copy of the 1689. You can go into those scripture proofs.

All right. But that's, that's the essence of the doctrine. Now I have, I have one last slide and this is where I just want to close out.

And if you have any questions, we can talk about them here. Understanding this doctrine should keep you from several things.

Firstly, anxiety. Think about it.

If you understand everything that this chapter of the confession has just said, when bad things happen to you, why are you anxious?

Right? Isn't that what Jesus said in Matthew chapter six? Why are you worried about what you're going to eat?

What you're going to wear? Why are you worried about those things? You know, does not your heavenly father feed the sparrows?

Doesn't he clothe the grass of the field more splendid than Solomon? And then he gets down a little bit further just before that Matthew 633, that verse that everybody should know.

He says, all these things, the pagans eagerly seek after. Notice if your priority is what is the physical things that God has provided, you've reversed the order.

He says, but you seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. And all these things will be added to you.

So everything, all the physical needs, they're important. In fact, apostle Paul says, if you're not feeding your family, you're worse than a non -believer.

So you, we do have those responsibilities, but if you're placing those responsibilities above your responsibilities to the kingdom of God, which very specifically is manifested in the church.

All right. You're thinking like a pagan. That's what Jesus said. All right. So, so why are you anxious?

Why are you nervous? Why do you, why are you so concerned about these things? All right.

So you should be free from anxiety if you understand this doctrine of providence. Second, complaining.

I told you, I used to have a habit. All right. And it was something, when something would go wrong, like if I can remember very distinctly getting ready for church,

I was running late and my shoelace broke. And I said, I don't need this right now.

And I stopped and I thought about it. I said, wait a minute. It's exactly right.

It's exactly what I needed right then. I don't know why, but I needed it.

So we, what's the sense in complaining about your circumstances? If you understand the doctrine of God's providence, things will, you are to learn from the things that come into your life and they should be driving you closer and closer to God.

All right. Presumption. Don't be presumptuous.

Remember the apostle Paul, apostle Paul wasn't presumptuous. He had a word, direct word from God.

Don't worry. You're going to stand before Caesar and nobody with you is going to die.

He sees the sailors pretending they're going out to check the lines, but he knows they're going to take the boat.

All right. So what does he do? He goes to the centurion. Hey, if you let those guys go, we're all going to die. He wasn't presumptuous and neither should we be presumptuous.

We can't presume upon God's grace. God does bring bad things into our lives for good purposes.

So don't think that just because you're believing that somehow you're going to be exempt from trouble. Okay. In fact, you've heard me say it.

Sometimes I think we should have a sign on the front door, right on the outside there. Enter at your own risk because when you name the name of Christ, you're in the crosshairs of the devil, but those crosshairs, he can only fire when

God gives him permission. And lastly, fatalism. If you understand the doctrine of providence, it is anything but fatalism because the decisions that you make are important and you are going to be held responsible for them.

Okay. Do you follow that? A lot of times people find out that, you know, you hold to the doctrines of grace, they'll call you, oh, you're a

Calvinist. Oh, you're a fatalism. You're a fatalist. No. Anybody, any

Christian who says that does not understand the word of God. It's just that simple because the

Bible is anything but fatalistic. The Bible places so much responsibility at our feet.

Remember there is nobody is going to be judged on that final day and cast into the lake of fire who does not deserve rightly to be there.

Conversely, there is nobody who's going to stand before the throne and be ushered into heaven who deserves to be there.

It's his grace. It's his mercy. And by his providence, he has brought us through and saved us and caused us to walk in his way.

Questions or thoughts? This is, I just can't stress enough how important this doctrine really is.

And especially at this time right now, we have everybody running around like chickens with their head cut off.

And I don't mean to belittle. Look, this virus is serious. People are dying and they're dying horrible deaths, but we got more trucks, you know, packed up outside the hospital.

It's no, it's bad. I'm not going to minimize it one little bit, but why are we running around fearful?