Mystery of Providence - Chapter 6

Yeah, you're good to go. Hello? It's now what?

It's not an input. You recorded about an hour and a half. Cool. I can just try to speak loudly for once.

Not for once, but louder again. Let's wait until he has the keys.

How many? It did two again? Do you want me to? I think it's because it went to sleep repeatedly.

I can do it, and we'll get it as time goes on. Yeah, someone else want one?

Here you go. Yes, they are. I started it again.

Remember, they're additional, but there aren't that many that were out there. Cool, understood.

Oh, hello. I heard that. This should be on the way now, because I'll be here. It probably will finish up.

But it's still saying it's offline, so that's not good news. OK. We are working on it.

It's pretty. It is lovely. All right, let's begin. As you guys hopefully remember, we did chapter six this week, which is

Preservation of the Saints from Evil. So let's get into that. So this chapter is especially focused on how

God works to preserve our souls from temptation. We also will be praying for this later as we go through the petitions of the

Lord's Prayer that when we ask God to actually prevent us from coming along with temptation.

So this is a chapter that helps us really reflect on ways that God does that for us, ways that God acts on us, ways that God acts within our lives and prevents us from experiencing sin more than we already have.

So God's providence is seen in how he preserves our souls from temptations with two ways in which we are preserved.

He speaks about two ways being the operation of internal grace and by God's explicit providence.

So let's speak a little bit about the internal grace first, which he doesn't speak too much on this.

So let's look at what he does have to say. It's Galatians 5, 17 is a passage that he quoted for this.

For the desires of the flesh are against the spirit and the desires of the spirit are against the flesh.

For though these are opposed to each other to keep you from doing the things you want to do.

And the things we want to do, it's in a sense talking about what we see in James as well, where our desires breed sin in our lives.

He's talking about the spirit tries to restrain our sinful desires and prevent us from evil in that way.

But then he speaks at length about the explicit or outward ways that God also provides against us sinning, talking about it as a hedge, similar to what we see from Job, as he's mentioned multiple times in this book.

So ways that he saves us from sin, some explicit ones. God provides us good counsel and necessary timing.

With this, he quotes 1 Samuel 25, 34, which if I remember correctly, yep,

Nabal and Abigail. So for as surely as the Lord, the God of Israel lives, who has restrained me from hurting you unless you had hurried and come to meet me, truly by morning there had not been left to Nabal so much as one male.

So in this case, we see that God prevented David from sinning in attacking

Abigail and Nabal's family more extremely than he really should, especially in this particular time in his life where he was young and didn't understand fully how to look to the

Lord for these things. God provided him good counsel from Abigail who goes on to become his wife. And we get another story.

This is a story we've actually had in a previous chapter of the book. There's a lot of repeated stories in this chapter and then again in the next chapter, which sort of points out, these come from different sermons, these come from different sections, right?

This is a story about Mr. Dodd. Mr. Dodd was strongly moved to visit his neighbor in the middle of the night, only to find that his neighbor was about to kill himself.

The man didn't kill himself and they had, I think it talks about in the other chapters, they had a longer conversation about it and there was more gospel truth that we had there, but the sense in which

God worked specifically to save this man, I think we often know about and remember these kinds of situations as they come where we're saved from sin or saved from some kind of destruction in the nick of time.

And so it's really something to look back to and remember these almost extreme ways in which God has saved us and sort of shaken us awake.

God may destroy the means that we intended to use in sinning. This, he brings back up the story of Mr.

Bolton again, a man who was desiring to become Roman Catholic and the man that was going to bring him to the

Roman Catholic Seminary via a ship did not show up to that yard that day.

He did not show up as he had promised. And so Mr. Bolton was, in a sense, kept away from joining the

Catholic Church because of that and went on to become, I can't remember if a Puritan or Reformed Baptist kind of guy.

And so he was able to avoid that sin just by the man not showing up. It's sort of an opposite analog to the story

Conley speaks about, the book that he went to go buy. And then a different guy shows up with a different book and another book, same price, all this stuff.

So there's ways in which God will work out specific situations in order to keep you from sinning because if you are his elect, he's going to maintain you by whatever means he can use, which is all means, because he's

God. This one I found interesting. God may provide a great affliction to hinder our ability to act on sin.

Let's look at the verse reference before we get into the story. Hosea 2, six. Therefore, I will hedge up her way with thorns and I will build a wall against her so that she cannot find her paths.

If we look at the outer context, let's actually read from five through seven. For their mother has played the whore.

She who conceived them has acted shamefully. For she said, I will go after my lovers who give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, my oil and my drink.

Therefore, I will hedge up her way with thorns and I will build a wall against her so that she cannot find her paths.

She shall pursue her lovers, but not overtake them. She shall seek them, but shall not find them.

Then she shall say, I will go and return to my first husband, for it was better for me than now.

So this is true both for his elect and for his non -elect that he hates sin so much that he also will put up hindrances and hedges in the way of us sinning continually.

And so I've definitely witnessed this multiple times. I can't think of a specific circumstance before myself where I'm desiring and intending a sin even for like a very long time.

And then God makes it as difficult as humanly possible for me to initiate that thing.

And it actually got me thinking too about, you know, we live in a technology age. I think we live in a time where we often try to point out, see, it's really easy for us to sin.

It's really easy for us to go out of our way to do wrongful things and to also even hide our tracks.

But at the same time, there are ways that we can put great hindrances in the way.

And I think we're even called to do that as to really witness to the hedge that God has given us and also expand that hedge as much as possible.

And so as we live in this age, really think about the ways in which you're, you know, potentially allowing sin to come into your life and instead put up hedges, whether that even just be getting other believers involved in your life.

I mean, every single one of us can communicate constantly with one another and we can get immediate encouragement from one another.

And even if some of us are busy, there's so many, even 30 is so many. Entropy wouldn't say that we're all busy at the exact same time, right?

Here's the example of Basil receiving a headache, preventing him from lusting. We get more about this later on.

We never get any details. We don't need the details, but it is reminiscent of, in a sense,

Paul's thorn in the flesh, which prevented pride. We don't know what Paul's thorn in the flesh was, but it was something that continuously reminded him and came at an opportune time to prevent him from pride.

Let's look at that passage, because it's a complicated one. 2 Corinthians 12, seven.

So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited.

And so even Paul, a great, maybe the greatest apostle, I don't know if we wanna stack rank them like that, he was given something to prevent him from sinning, to keep him dutiful to the service of the

Lord and to keep him from becoming proud, especially in his particular position to go to the Jews and the

Gentiles very early in the church and to write much of what we read today in the Bible. To the next point,

God may save us by causing us to reflect on his word. This is something, again, we can really work to improve and maintain in our lives.

If we, again, we have audio Bibles, we have access to sermons, we have access to even like this book we're reading in an audio form.

There's no reason we can't really wash ourselves constantly with God's word and cause us to reflect on it.

And it's really difficult for us to do that. It's difficult for us to sin when we're hearing the truth of the Lord in our ears at every time or we're reading it ourselves.

So just consider in your day what gaps there are that you could be filling with more worshipful thoughts and just better thoughts in general so you can remember what the

Lord has done for you. And lastly, God may save us from temptation by giving us up to death.

I just found this one, it's sort of funny and it's very sad as well in its own way that there may be the only way

God can prevent one from sinning any further than they already have is just to cause them to die, cause them to not be here any longer.

And so something we should really consider is are we trying to even enjoy this life that God has given us or are we sort of asking for him to end it early?

Let's look at Isaiah 57, one that he mentions here. The righteous man perishes and no one lays it to heart.

Devout men are taken away while no one understands for the righteous man is taken away from calamity.

Again, it's not even that we are righteous in and of ourselves, but righteous through what Christ has done for us.

So because we can deem ourselves righteous, we should be sort of forewarned about what

God will actually do in giving us up to death. I think he, I don't remember if it was this chapter or a previous one too, where we spoke a little bit about the ages of some of like the

Puritans and reformers at their own deaths. They all died pretty early. You know, when

Charlie Kirk died, people mentioned like he was in his 30s and he'd done very great things.

And in some ways, maybe it's a blessing also that people are taken early so that their ministry has a very pointed and focused impact.

Do you remember, how old was John Calvin when he died? He was pretty young. Yeah, not really that old by any means.

Maybe old for them. I don't even think that is true though. And from this section, there are some things we should be reflecting on specifically.

How often are lusts and corruptions have driven us to sin? It's not verse 114 of James one, it's verse 14 of James one.

Really looking back, this reminds me of the sins of the youth passages that we've also had mentioned here before.

Our sins are greater in our early years and in the same way that we should be tracking God's providences so that we can praise him for those later, we really should be tracking our providences and how he saves us from sin as well.

So we can go back and recognize like how much purity he has really given us in that course of our life.

And that continues to be the case. And it continues with many of the rest of these. How close we have gotten to sinning yet been saved of it by special means.

How many people are completely lost in their sin? This is very easy to see if you just look around you.

Especially if you have unsaved family, it may just be constantly reminding you throughout your days.

And how terrible would your life be had you not been saved from so many temptations? Again, sort of recording these things so you can even understand and think about if I had continued in this way, what would that look like?

What blessings would I have been likely denied just by the logical implications of these things?

After the next major section of this, God's providence and how he preserves our bodies from the effects of temptation.

Ways that he saves us from harm. He mentions Isaiah 38 10 for preserving us from the brink of death when we have a great illness.

I don't know how many of us have experienced that. I know a lot of people who have had very long running and very difficult illnesses.

And it's in coming out of that that they have a great joy about who the Lord is, even if it had taken so many of their years away.

So there's a way in which we can really grow, not only be preserved from death, but also grow in these great things that we go through.

So Isaiah 38 10. I said in the middle of my days, I must depart.

I am consigned to the gates of Sheol for the rest of my years. Preserving us from harm and death in times of war and slaughter.

I don't think we have as much of this now. So it's just that we don't have a draft and we don't have a war going on anywhere right now.

But I like that the story he mentions or Beza, some person was in France during the first civil war and recorded 600 deliverances from danger.

Sort of surprised they could be writing down 600 things. But again, just a admonition to us to actually think about and record the particulars of what

God is doing for us each day. I mean, we may smirk at that numbering, but maybe if we were honest about our numbering and in each given day, each given day we may have like double digit things that God has explicitly done for us.

And we're not even aware of many of those. Preserving us from harm and death in large bodies of water.

I felt this was important to mention just because there's a lot of imagery too in the

Bible just about large bodies of water and chaos. So we should definitely think about it from that perspective but also like when we go in planes, when we go on large trips of any kind,

I think this can apply. I'm gonna look at, we're gonna look at Psalm 107, 23 to 27 real quick though.

I'll read. Some went down to the sea in ships doing business on the great waters.

They saw the deeds of the Lord, His wondrous works in the deep for He commanded and raised the stormy wind which lifted up the waves of the sea.

They mounted up to heaven. They went down to the depths. Their courage melted away in their evil plight. They reeled and staggered like drunken men and were at their wit's end.

Remind ourselves especially of Christ calming the waters, that there is a lot that He's doing in controlling the events of the world, controlling the weather that we experience and controlling the just natural events that go on day to day.

I joke about this often actually, so you might have already heard it, but back in the Midwest, we would have multiple tornadoes a year.

And I've explained to people that I think people out there, it's harder to find an atheist, partially because they see the wrath of God every year.

And it's almost a wantonness and randomness to how it even seems to select houses to be destroyed.

Like in our town, we had a house once get fully leveled by a tornado. And its neighbors didn't even lose a shingle kind of situation.

And these neighbors are like 10 feet away from each other in each direction too. So there's just a sense in which if we look at these events, we can get angry at God or we can do the right thing and actually recognize

His preservation, His providence and His control over such an awesome thing. Lastly in this part, preserving us from innumerable harms, many of which we have no idea about.

This is something that I've started to think about more as I even drive. Like you see, there's always an accident on name a freeway around here.

There's always an accident, always an accident. Today I had to take a really weird route home because of that. And it's considering that you're not the one in the accident and that for what reason is it?

Is it because of God? How God is even orchestrating people's days that makes them more sleepy and not fit to drive, et cetera.

There's just all these factors that you can't really enumerate and comprehend. And so give

God thanks and glory each time that you even like make it home from something minutely complex.

It's something that I'm starting to realize. Last bit of stuff we should be reflecting on.

How much we owe to God's providence for being alive and well today. Sort of like I just mentioned, but let's look at the psalm,

Psalm 3420. He keeps all his bones, not one of them is broken.

Now I think this is also potentially a Messianic psalm as they all are. But it is something that we can think of ourselves like,

I actually haven't ever broken a bone, so it could be talking about me in that sense, right? And that's something to thank

God for. Is anything that you haven't had to deal with? I'm pretty sure all of us have people who have unique situations of difficulty that we don't have.

How every part of our body has been an instrument of sin, yet the Lord has preserved them.

Again, goes back to thinking about the sins of your youth. There's so much that we've done that if you look at it rightly, you really don't deserve to have the means which even allowed you to sin in the first place.

There's a passage where Christ talks about plucking out your own eye instead of casting the whole body into hell.

But God is so great that he also preserves that eye, he preserves that hand that causes us to sin.

And so we should both be thankful for that and also use it to recognize this last point that he made, how

God's preservation of us is intended for greater service unto him. God has not only preserved you so that you may have a good life, he's also preserved you so that you may do greater things in service of the church, may do greater things in order to glorify him even more greatly and to enjoy him more in the time to come.

To close this out, let's read a few of these passages. There's a bunch of them here, so we'll maybe go through them all, maybe not.

1 Corinthians 6, 19, let's start with that. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the

Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own. Hebrews 1, 14.

Are they not all, speaking about angels, ministering spirits sent out to serve for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation?

Romans 12, 1. So for that one, think about our worship here, especially, is witnessed by the angels.

Angels are ministering to us. And since it's not that you are then invulnerable, but instead, there's a sense in which your life is to help even the angels understand how great

God is, to glorify him in a way. They cannot understand fully the way that you do, but it's something that you are still called to be doing.

Romans 12, 1. I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.

Psalm 35, 10. All my bones shall say, oh

Lord, who is like you, delivering the poor from who is too strong for him, the poor and needy from him who robs him.

And lastly, Philippians 3, 21. Who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.

Amen. So again, God has preserved your body, despite the sin that it instigates, in order that you may provide greater service to him.

So again, start to consider and really plot out how he has preserved you, how he's gotten you to the point you're at now, and think also about where he may be taking you and how to pray for that, how to ask for greater understanding, how to ask for greater opportunities to worship and know him, right?

Did anyone have? Got a mic here to, well. If it doesn't record, that's fine.

Or if it just comes through here, through there, and then has a very, I don't know, poor compression or something, that's fine.

Like a over -pixelated JPEG. The passage that always comes to mind when

I think about dying as a form of providence that protects you from things is 1

Corinthians 11, 32. It says, this is why many of you are weak and ill and some have died, but if we judged ourselves truly, we would not be judged.

But when we are judged by the Lord, we are disciplined so that we may not be condemned along with the world.

So God describes that not as punishment, but as discipline for believers to die, having taken of the

Lord's table wrongly. And taking of the Lord's table wrongly here, I think, being something different than other ways that it could be taken wrongly, for example, by an unbeliever.

But when you take the Lord's Supper, you're essentially making a pledge to God and to your brothers and sisters, that's how it's even described in our confession, to serve the

Lord. And so if someone does that without wholehearted commitment, they are drinking judgment on themselves in that sense, and the

Lord protects them from further sin by taking their life.

So anyway, that's just another passage I was kind of surprised he didn't mention. But the one in Isaiah is, of course, the classic one.

Anyway, that's all. Anyone else have anything fun from the chapter or any big realizations or questions?