The Providence of God (October 6, 2024)

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FBC Travelers Rest sermon from October 6, 2024 by Pastor Rhett Burns

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We can turn in your Bibles to Psalm 135. Psalm 135.
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We're going to be in verses 1 through 7. We'll start there, but where I normally preach through a passage, today
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I'm going to preach through a biblical concept or what we call a doctrine. I'm going to preach broadly on God's providence.
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We'll pick back up in 1 Timothy next week, but after the last week or so that we have lived together,
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I want to focus in on God's providence this morning, and I want to do this because of our current situation.
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You think about the storm and the damage that it's done here and in other places, and then you add on top of Helene various other things that we see going on in our world, from election turmoil to wars in various places around the world, and then you get things that are a home, like the situation that the
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Gordy family and the Stiles family are walking through right now, and you likely in your own lives and your own families are likely facing your own hard situations, and when you put all that together, you realize there's troubles all around.
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It's like what Job said in Job 5, 5 -7, yet man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward.
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We all know the old kid song, he's got the whole world in his hands, he's got the whole world in his hands, and we profess that God's got everything in control, but then something hard happens, and we often start asking questions, where's
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God? Is God in control? Why would God let this happen? Is there any hope or comfort?
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And I believe that we find our answers to those questions in the doctrine of God's providence.
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So here's where we're going today, I want us to start in Psalm 135 verses 1 -7, we're going to let that passage then propel us into the deep ocean of God's providence.
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When we do that, I want to define God's providence, I want to demonstrate
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God's providence from the scriptures, giving special attention to providence as it relates to the natural world.
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There's a whole lot more we can say about providence as it relates to man, we'll leave that for another time. Then I want to drill down providence into our minds and our hearts and our souls as it relates to our recent experience with Helene, so that we delight in God's providence, exulting in it, and that we're comforted by it.
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So define, demonstrate, drill down and delight, that's where we're headed today. My hope is that you will find both comfort and clarity for this moment in the sure providence of God, and that this will be preparatory for us so that we remain steadfast and joyful in any future trials that we may face.
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So let's begin, Psalm 135, verses 1 -7, and God's word says, Praise the
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Lord, praise the name of the Lord, praise Him, O you servants of the
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Lord, you who stand in the house of the Lord, in the courts of the house of our God. Praise the
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Lord, for the Lord is good. Sing praises to His name, for it is pleasant.
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For the Lord has chosen Jacob for Himself, Israel for His special treasure. For I know that the
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Lord is great, and our Lord is above all gods. Whatever the
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Lord pleases, He does, in heaven and in earth, in the seas and in all deep places.
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He causes the vapors to ascend from the ends of the earth. He makes lightning for the rain.
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He brings out, He brings the wind out of His treasuries. Amen. This is
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God's word to us this morning. We see in verses 1 -5, we see a call to praise
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God. That in all things, in all times, in all situations, our call is to praise the
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Lord. And the primary ground, the primary reason for that praise, is what we see in verse 3, that the
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Lord is good. And we might couple that verse with what we see in Psalm 119 verse 68, which says that the
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Lord is good, and the Lord does good. The Lord is good, the
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Lord does good, therefore let us praise the Lord. We praise Him for His good, and that everything that He does, no matter what it is that He does, or how it may seem to us at any given moment, or how difficult it may be for us at any certain time, that everything
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He does is good, and so let us praise the Lord. So verses 1 -5, then verses 6 and 7, they speak to God's sovereignty and God's providence over the world.
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It says, whatever the Lord pleases, He does, in heaven and in earth.
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Nothing can stop God. If God wants to do something, nothing can stop God.
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If God wants to stop something, nothing can stop God. Whatever He wants to do, He does. The Lord is great and He is above all gods.
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Verse 5, nothing and no one can stop God. He is sovereign over all.
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And through His providence, He controls, directs, orders, and governs all things.
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You see that in verse 7. He causes the vapors to ascend. He makes lightning for the rain.
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He brings the wind out of His treasuries. And I want you to notice here, God's governance of the natural world, water, vapor, lightning, rain, wind.
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And I want you to reach back into your elementary school grammar days. I want you to notice the nouns and the verbs.
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Who's doing the action here? He causes. He makes.
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He brings. God does these things. When it comes to the wind and the waters, God is the one doing the action here in Psalm 135.
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You see, the world is not a mindless force operating on mechanical laws independent from its maker.
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No, God made the world. God rules the world. God meticulously governs the world.
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That's what we call providence. Now, at first blush, having just lived through a lifetime storm, you may not feel like this is comforting at all.
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You may be even tempted to say, well, if that's true, then God must be harsh. God must be bad or harsh to send the wind from His treasury to my house, to my trees, to follow my power line.
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But I caution you just for a moment. I want you to meditate on this doctrine with me for a few moments this morning, and my hope is that by the end of this sermon, you will rejoice in the providence of God, taking comfort and having full assurance in the goodness of God and His purposes in all things.
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Here at the outset, I want to cite one of my main sources that I used in preparation this week. John Piper has a 700 -page book called
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Providence. I didn't read all 700 pages this week, but there are a few chapters that were really and particularly helpful for preparation of this sermon.
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So rather than just kind of citing him at every twist and turn this morning, I just wanted to do a blanket source credit on that here at the beginning.
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With that said, let us define providence. To do that,
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I want to consult some of our fathers in the faith to see what they've said about it in the history of the
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Christian church. I think the best way to do that is to go to some of the old catechisms and confessions, which are just faithful summaries of the
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Bible's teaching that are meant to instruct God's people. I just want to read a few excerpts, draw out a few things from these old
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Christian documents, and then kind of put it together in a succinct, concise definition of providence.
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So let me read first from the Heidelberg Catechism. This is from 1563, where the question is, what do you mean by the providence of God?
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And the answer is, the almighty and everywhere present power of God, whereby, as it were by his hand, he upholds and governs heaven, earth, and all creatures, so that herbs and grass, rain and drought, fruitful and barren years, meat and drink, health and sickness, riches and poverty, indeed all things come, not by chance, but by his fatherly hand.
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As you notice here, that God upholds and governs all things, and he does so, and this gets to the point of providence, by his fatherly hand.
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In other words, as Piper wrote, everything in the universe is governed with a view to the good of God's children, because he's doing all things by his fatherly hand.
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Second, let me read from the Belgic Confession, 1561, which says, we believe that the same
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God, after he had created all things, did not forsake them, nor give them up to fortune or chance, but that he rules and governs them according to his holy will, so that nothing happens in this world without his appointment.
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Again, we notice that God rules and governs all things, nothing's left to chance or fortune, and that nothing happens in this world without God's appointment, or we might say his orderly arrangement.
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Keeping that in mind, let's go to the Westminster Catechism, it says, what are the works of providence? God's works of providence are his most holy, wise, and powerful, preserving and governing all his creatures and all their actions to his own glory.
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And so again, we see providence is, it not only preserves, but orders all his creatures and their actions, and then we see purpose here.
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What's the purpose? To his own glory. God's ordering all things to his own glory.
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And then lastly, from the Second London Baptist Confession of Faith says, 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 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.
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And so here we see God's sovereignty, he upholds, he directs, he disposes, he governs all creatures and things, and we also see his providence, that this pervasive sovereignty that he has, this pervasive power over the world that he has, is then governed by his wisdom and his holiness.
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And, that it all has a purpose. The praise of the glory of God's wisdom, power, justice, goodness, and mercy.
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So this is where we see a distinction between God's sovereignty and his providence. Sovereignty refers to his power to do all things.
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God rules. And then providence refers to the purposes that God has in doing all that pleases him.
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We'll see that in just a moment, about his purposes. But we see that God can do all things, that's his sovereignty, and that whatever he does, he does so according to his plans and his purposes.
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That's providence. And this also, this distinction also helps us to see the difference between providence and fate.
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Providence and fate. So Charles Spurgeon once preached a sermon on Ezekiel 1 where he said this, he said,
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I believe that every particle of dust that dances in the sunbeam does not move an atom more or less than God wishes.
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That every particle of spray that dashes against the steamboat has its orbit as well as the sun in the heavens.
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That the chafe from the hand of the winner is steered as surely as the stars in their courses. That the chirping of an athos over a rosebud is as much fixed as the march of the devastating pestilence and the fall of leaves from the poplar is as fully ordained as the tumbling of an avalanche.
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And then he goes on to say, you will say this morning that our minister is a fatalist. Your minister is no such thing.
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Some will say, ah, he believes in fate. He does not believe in fate at all. What is fate? Fate is this.
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Whatever is must be. But there is a difference between that and providence. Providence says whatever God ordains must be.
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But the wisdom of God never ordains anything without a purpose. Everything in this world is working for some one great end.
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Fate does not say that. Fate simply says that the thing must be. Providence says that God moves the wheels along and there they are.
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So fate says whatever is must be. Providence says whatever God ordains must be. And God only ordains things for glorious and good purposes.
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One last statement of faith will round out our understanding of providence and we'll put it all together. This one is from the
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Bethlehem Baptist Church Elder Affirmation of Faith which says, we believe that God from all eternity in order to display the full extent of his glory for the eternal and ever increasing enjoyment of all who love him, did by the most wise and holy counsel of his will freely and unchangeably ordain and foreknow whatever comes to pass.
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And here I want you to notice the twin purposes of God's providence. One is the display of his own glory and two is the ever increasing enjoyment of all who love
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God. That is that all of God's actions from the most minute to what gets recorded in the history books for millennia, all of it is for God's glory and our joy.
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For God's glory and your joy. Putting all this together we can then succinctly define providence in this way.
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God upholds, directs, orders, and governs all things by the wisdom and goodness of his fatherly hand such that nothing is left to chance for the purpose of bringing glory to himself and joy to his people.
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And this doesn't answer every question that we have about providence. I hope that it gives us a good definition of what providence is.
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There's a lot more we could say about God's direct action and what might be called his planned permission. With planned permission there might be a lot of steps in there of secondary causes.
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There's a lot we could say there but I just want us to get the main idea which is that God upholds and governs all things by the wisdom and goodness of his fatherly hand.
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And nothing is left to chance and he does it for the purpose of bringing glory to himself and joy to his people. And sometimes it may take us a little while to get there because this doesn't minimize any of the tragic things that happen in our lives.
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It may take us a little while to get there before we see what it is that glorifies God, before we see what it is that brings us joy.
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But I think we can trust God that that's what he's doing in this world. Let me demonstrate providence from the
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Bible. Now here I'm going to take you on a whirlwind tour of the Bible. So if you're a note taker this would be a good time to just relax.
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I'll give you the list of verses later. But I just want you to hear the force of the
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Bible's witness to God's actions and providence in the world. Okay? Let's start where we started in Psalm 135 verses 6 and 7.
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Again we see whatever the Lord pleases he does in heaven and in earth, in the seas and all the deep places.
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He calls the vapors to ascend from the ends of the earth, makes lightning for the rain, brings wind out of his treasuries. Hear the force of God's actions in the natural world.
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In Psalm 104, 8 and 9 speaking about the waters says, They went up over the mountains, they went down into the valleys, to the place which you founded for them.
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You have set a boundary that they may not pass over, that they may not return to cover the earth. Psalm 147 verse 8 and 9 says,
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Who covers the heavens with clouds, who prepares the rain for the earth, who makes grass grow on the mountains.
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He gives to the beast its food and to the young ravens that cry. Jonah 4, 7 where God directed a worm says,
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But as morning dawned, the next day God prepared a worm so that it damaged the plant that it withered.
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Then we can consider what the scriptures say about the stars. Isaiah 40 verse 26 that God created the stars.
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Psalm 8, 3 that he put them in their place. Psalm 147, 4 that he counts them and he calls them by name so that they do his bidding.
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Psalm 147, 14 says that God makes the grass grow. Now we know that, you know, you remember your science lessons, there's photosynthesis, it gets light and something with chlorophyll,
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I'm trying to remember my science lessons. But God uses all that.
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We can put all the scientific language on there and we should, we're observing God's world and how he made it. But God makes the grass grow.
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How does the grass grow? God makes it to grow. Where does the wind come from? From his treasuries.
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Where does the lightning come from? He makes it the lightning for the rain. The testimony of the Bible is not that God made the world and then just let it be to operate on its own, left to be governed by mindless physical properties independent of himself who made it.
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No. Whether we're talking about the grass growing or we're talking about the movement of the clouds or we're talking about the rain that falls or the lightning or the wind or the eyes and ears of man,
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God's providence is up close. God's providence is powerful in creation.
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We see in the Bible that God's providence is over the waters. Luke 8 .24,
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Jesus commands the waves to be still and they're still. The wind and the waves obey him.
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Matthew 8 .27. God rebuked the Red Sea and it became dry. Psalm 106 .9. He divided the sea.
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Nehemiah 9 .11. He brought back the waters upon Pharaoh's army. Ezekiel, excuse me, Exodus 15 .19.
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We see in Job 37 .10 that ice freezes by God's breath, that he freezes the rain to make hail.
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Psalm 105 .32. See in 2 Kings 3, he makes water flow where there was no stream.
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He turned the river to blood, Psalm 105 .29. He made water flow from a bone dry rock,
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Numbers 20 verse 8. He made an axe head float in water, 2 Kings 6. 2
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Kings 4, he unpoisoned poisoned waters. Amos 4 .7. He sends the rain here and not there.
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Matthew 5 .45. He sends the rain on the just and the unjust. 2 Chronicles 7.
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Isaiah 5. Haggai 1. He shuts up the rains. We see God's providence over water.
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We also in the Bible see God's providence over the wind. Matthew 8 .26 .27. Jesus rebuked the wind and it obeyed.
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Exodus 10 .13. He brought the locusts upon Egypt by stirring up a mighty east wind.
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He turned that wind then into a west wind and he drove the locusts into the sea. Exodus 10 .19. He drowned
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Pharaoh's army by blowing the wind so that the waters would cover them.
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Exodus 15 .10. He both commanded and raised the storm and made the storm stand still.
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Psalm 107 verses 23 to 29. He brings wind from his treasuries, Psalm 135 .7.
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And the strong wind fulfills his word, Psalm 148 .7 and 8. You see the witness of the
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Bible is that God is intricately involved in the natural world including the rains, and the winds, and the storms, and even the disasters.
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Amos 3 .6 is one of the most emotionally difficult passages in the Bible, I believe. Amos 3 .6
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says, does disaster come to a city unless the Lord has done it? But we must remember that all of God's upholding, directing, ordering, governing is done for the twin purpose of bringing glory to himself and joy to his people.
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Therefore we can trust that no suffering is in vain. No suffering is ultimately gratuitous.
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That all of God's actions are ultimately, eventually for our good, and our joy, and his glory.
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Job 37 .11 -13 speaks to this. It says, also with moisture he saturates the thick clouds, he scatters his bright clouds.
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They swirl about being turned by his guidance, that they may do whatever he commands them on the face of the whole earth.
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He causes it to come, whether for correction, or for his land, or for mercy.
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See hardships from the natural world may sometimes be for our correction. They may sometimes be to display
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God's mercy. I think we can always say they're always for our good, and our joy, and for the glory of the
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Lord. Matthew 10 .29 -31 is helpful here, where Jesus says, are not two sparrows sold for a copper coin, and not one of them falls to the ground apart from your father's will?
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But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Do not fear, therefore, you are of more value than many sparrows.
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Here we see that God, he governs all things, even down to the deaths of birds, and we see here that you're more valuable than the birds.
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God attends to you with meticulous care, even numbering the hairs on your head.
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So God's providence is for your good, even if you can't quite see it yet. You can trust the God whose eye is on the sparrow, that he has his eyes on you.
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And so, when we are faced with the reality of God's ever -present power and the providence expressed through calamity in the natural world, our response should either be silence or song.
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Job 40 verses 3 and 5, Then Job answered the Lord and said, Behold, I am vile. What shall
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I answer you? I lay my hand over my mouth. Once I have spoken, but I will not answer, yet twice, but I will proceed no further.
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So when faced with God's providence over the world, even in our very own sufferings, Job learned to put his hands over his mouth and be quiet before the
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Lord, and to trust in God's goodness and his justice and his wise plan. But if we must speak, let it not be to complain or grumble or to accuse the
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Lord, but to sing his praise. Psalm 104 verse 33, I will sing to the Lord as long as I live,
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I will sing praise to my God while I have my being. And then, whether in silence or in song, we should look to Christ.
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For both the calamities of life and its pleasures, by God's wise, just, and loving providence, they all lead us to Jesus, whose death and resurrection secures for us a future with a glorified earth, a natural world, which shall be all mercy and no pain, to the praise of God's glorious grace.
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I'm going to drill down and apply this doctrine of providence to Hurricane Helene, but let me just pause for a moment.
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I know there are many of us in this room who have experienced just awful tragedies in our lives.
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By no means does this doctrine of God's providence minimize that pain at all, or minimize the seriousness of that situation at all,
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I should say. What it does, I think, is it calls us to look to Christ.
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It calls us to trust God's goodness even more than what our eyes can see.
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And my hope is that it is a deep, deep comfort to you to know that your suffering is not in vain, but that God is doing something with it.
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Let's look at how this applies to Helene. I think we can say that God was not absent, but present in the storm.
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In other words, that hurricane didn't catch God by surprise. He wasn't tuning in to Christ's justice on Thursday night like the rest of us, trying to figure out what in the world is going on.
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No, God upheld, directed, ordered, governed
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Helene by the wisdom and goodness of His fatherly hand such that none of it was left to chance and for the purpose of bringing glory to Himself and joy to His people.
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We know from Romans 8, 28 that God is working in and through Helene for good for those who love
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God and are called according to His purpose. And so at a high, broad level, we know God's purpose in Helene was to bring glory to Himself, joy to His people.
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Perhaps His overarching purpose in all things. What else might God be working for His glory and our good through Helene?
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I think a storm like that leads us to, or causes us to fear
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God. It ought to lead us to repentance. Perhaps it brings some people to the end of themselves and their self -reliance so that they trust
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Christ. Maybe to give conditions to give rise to neighborliness and love of neighbor.
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I've heard just countless stories over the last week of one neighbor helping another, strangers helping another.
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Maybe it gives opportunities for heroism and courage, like some of what we've heard coming out of western
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North Carolina. Maybe it stirs up gratitude in our hearts. Maybe it reminds us that we are dust or teaches us that God cares for us and we can cast our cares on Him because He cares for us.
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And ten thousand other things in individual lives that we'll never know about. The story of Job, once again, can provide insight for us into God's purposes.
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The book of James talks about Job and highlights both the mercy of God and Job's blessedness in James 5 .11
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where it says, Job suffered much, but in the end he persevered, and in the end
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Job is blessed and happy, and the Lord is revealed as merciful.
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May that be true of all of us in our hardships. May we persevere, may we endure, and at the end of our days may we know that the
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Lord is merciful and we find ourselves blessed and happy in Him. And this should lead us to delight in God's providence.
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We can delight and take joy and have assurance that even in very challenging and tragic situations because of God's providence, because God's providence means that the
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Lord who is good and does good, that He's in control of all of these events and steering them to His desired end.
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We can take joy and delight in His providence. We can take comfort. That steering is done by God's wisdom,
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His perfect wisdom, His perfect justice, and His perfect love. By definition that can't end badly.
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And so we persevere until we get there. It might be a wild ride.
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It might be a wild ride that feels bad, feels dangerous, or out of control at times, but God's providence means that we are firmly in His fatherly hand at all times.
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And that He is using these events for our good. That nothing is wasted with God. Nothing can stop
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God. No one and no thing can thwart His purposes because all events do
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His bidding and His bidding is directed toward the good of His children. This then leads to fear, wonder, gratitude, courage, strength, faith.
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It makes our worship more intense, our conviction more unwavering, our faith stronger, our joy and courage more full.
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And when we contemplate that God meticulously upholds, directs, orders, and governs everything from the smallest subatomic particle to the largest galaxy far away and everything in between, it should lead us to delight in the good, mighty, and wise hand of the
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Lord. And it should give us cause to do what Psalm 135 says to do in the beginning there at verse 1.
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Praise the Lord. Praise the name of the Lord. Praise the Lord for the
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Lord is good. And He does good.
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Always. Let's pray together. Our Father in heaven, help us to remember your providence at all times.
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That you truly have the world in your hands. And that even when things are tough and bleak,
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Lord I pray that we would trust that you are doing something glorious. To trust that you are working all of these things, even the painful ones, that you're working them for our good.
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Even when we can't quite see it yet. Help us to remember that your ways are higher than our ways.
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Your thoughts are higher than our thoughts. And strengthen our faith. We need our faith strengthened because we're often weak and we confess that freely.
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Knowing that you know our frame and you know that we are dust. Asking you to harden our resolve because we often waver.
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That you would increase our joy. That you would intensify our worship.
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That you may be glorified in heaven and earth through all things.
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we ask all of these things in the name of your Son, Jesus. Amen.