Cure For Despair (Part 2)

Thanks for tuning in to No Compromise Radio with pastor and author, Dr. Mike Abendroth. Today on No Compromise Radio, we'll be hearing Pastor Mike open the Word of God in a recent message he preached at Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston, Massachusetts.

Now let's join Pastor Mike in progress as he preaches through the scriptures, verse by verse, with No Compromise.

The Son of God Upholds All Things by His Power

Long ago, at many times, and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets. But in these last days, He has spoken to us by His Son. Of course, we're talking about the Lord Jesus Christ, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He created the world.

He, Jesus, is the radiance of the glory of God, this effulgent glory, and the exact imprint of His nature. Here's what I'm after. And He, Jesus, in spite of what you think, in spite of what your eyes tell you, in spite of what the world is doing, in spite of how Naomi looks at the world, He upholds the universe by the word of His power.

That's what the Bible says. After making purification for sins, He sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high, this risen Savior. Look back at verse three, upholds all things by the word of His power.

Now lots of times I think of that we're holding, you just pick up. I'm holding something. This word means to pick up and move it someplace else. I don't know how good this analogy is, but it just popped in my mind.

If you're on Juneau Beach and your buddy gets shot and he can't move, you don't just pick him up. You pick him up and then you take him someplace, safety. You move him someplace. This isn't holding the world on his back like Atlas.

This is taking everything that he's created and then moving it towards the goal, moving it towards his purpose, moving it towards the end. This is Jesus, the risen Savior, the powerful Savior, upholding all things by the word of His power.

I mean all things. This is almost too easy to preach. Think about your life. All things, righteous things, sinful things, in-laws, outlaws, right? Every little thing, God takes it and He's moving it towards this goal.

The Bible says this is happening. I have to submit my mind, my feelings, my heart, my soul, my emotions to this truth because if I let my eyes run out ahead of this scripture, then I've got all kinds of stuff going on.

I'm going to start turning into Naomi in terms of reading Providence wrongly. He keeps, He's involved, He directs. Say, but my kids are out of control, my wife is an unbeliever, my dad's an unbeliever.

There's all kinds of things that could go on in your mind and the question is, do you believe that God is sovereign over everything or don't you? Yeah, but if I look at the tea leaves of my past, it doesn't seem like it.

That's why we need to go with the sure word. Remember Peter, James, and John seeing Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration? What must have that been like? Seeing Jesus, hearing the Father, this is my beloved Son in whom I'm what?

Well, please, listen to Him. And then Peter writes in 2 Peter chapter 1 that there's something more sure than your eyes and your ears and what's that? The scriptures. I have to have faith in God's providential outworking of His divine providence.

Colossians 1, and He is before all things and in Jesus all things hold together. Without this truth and if I just go by what I see, I'm telling you, it is helter-skelter mentally for me. Yes, but you say, I'd like an explanation of why all these things are happening in my life.

I can't give you one. I'll give you something better. The promises of God are true. Yes, but I want to know why. Well, friends, I could say it two ways. You will know why maybe one day in the future and you look back in the past and you say, yeah, I see how God worked that out.

Or you might know in glory and you could say, yes, if I could go back, okay, let's put it this way. Let's make the rub happen. I bet some of you now don't want to listen to what I'm going to say. I got a letter a week ago, I'm a modern pastor.

I'm some kind of modernist pastor, a compromiser. And since I didn't answer the mail, it's now on the internet, this big, long, three-page letter against the modern pastor, Mike Avendron. How do I read that providentially?

If you're in heaven and were asked the question, do you wish God would have done anything differently in your life? I'm talking anything, stop you from marrying, stop this baby from being conceived, stop this sickness from happening, healed here instead of allowing to suffer, I mean anything, you would say, God, everything you did was perfect in this world except that one thing.

And yes, I would change it, would you? Of course you wouldn't. You'd say, God upholds everything by his mighty power. He created and he sustains and he moved towards the end and he does it for his glory and he does it for my good.

And now I used to have to see God by faith, now I see him by sight. I don't even need faith in heaven anymore because I see Jesus. And you did everything perfectly well. Everything you did was well. It's well with my soul.

And see what's happening with providence in this doctrine. The world just keeps bombarding us with deism, evolution. The world hates providence because they know that God not only creates and sustains, but if he creates and sustains, then he judges.

And people cannot stand the judgment of God. Someone else is in charge. The world and its sinful thinking rebels. The author of Anne of Green Gables, L .M. Montgomery said, my life is a perfect graveyard of buried hopes.

Lucy Maud Montgomery. Anne Rice said, the prince is never going to come. Everyone knows that, and maybe even Sleeping Beauty's dead. That's why when the world is pushing and promoting and selling its wares ideologically, methodologically, we've got to stand up against the world's input.

That's why Bible reading, simple, regular Bible reading is so important because we need to have our minds what? Captured like a POW to the world? Or thinking rightly by the renewing of your what? I praise God for Bethlehem Bible Church because you want the Bible.

And the minute we don't give you the Bible, I'm sure you're gone. The first thing that you can do when it comes to providence, so you don't turn into Naomi, is to walk by faith and not by sight. Secondly, when you think of providence, think present tense.

Think all the time. If you go back to Hebrews chapter one, that is the tense there. He's always upholding. If you're not careful, you'll be tempted to say, I know God was sovereign over Ruth and the Moabitess.

I know that. I know he's sovereign over his second coming, and when Jesus returns, and sovereign over the eternal state. I know he's sovereign in the Bible days, but I want you to think sovereign today.

I love Jesus' words after he healed at the pool on the Sabbath, and it's classic. It's the best. Think about present tense for a minute. Jesus answered them saying, my father is working until now, and I am working.

I'm currently working. Psalm 103 says, his sovereignty rules over all. Jane Welsh Carlyle said something that made my day. We cannot be robbed of God's providence. You can't be robbed of God's providence, because God is present tense, always doing this very thing.

Think of all the things they could steal. When's the last time somebody broke into your house and stole something, or stole something from your car? I mean, do you like that feeling? I remember when our car got broken into a couple years ago.

It's just like, you just have that kind of like, I'll say it, you feel violated, don't you? You can't be robbed of God's providence. The character of God is at stake. B .B. Warfield said, it is because we cannot be robbed of God's providence that we know amid whatever encircling gloom, that all things shall work together for good to those that love him.

It is because we cannot be robbed of God's providence that we know that nothing can separate us from the love of Christ, not tribulation, nor anguish, nor persecution, nor famine, nor nakedness, nor peril, nor sword.

Behold, the Lord keeps Israel, and he will neither slumber nor sleep. Number three, number three. Instead of trying to read providence, focus on what you do know. Instead of trying to read providence, focus on what you do know.

Please turn your Bibles to 1 Timothy chapter 6. If you're not a pastor, you'll still like these verses. But if you are a pastor, an elder, a deacon, a leader, someone who is in one of those categories, you're going to love this.

It seems like ministry is chaos. Seems like ministry is, I'll tell you what it's like. In my life, here's what I like. I used to work for the phone company, Northwestern Bell. The young people have no idea what Bell is.

And my job was to go fix telephones. And back in those days, if you didn't know how to fix the phone, I mean, some fixes were easy. They tell you, does not ring. DNR, does not ring. You go in and you go, hmm, I bet you if I just go outside and open up this phone, about 50 cockroaches are going to come out because the bell is warm.

And they like to get in by the bell. And I think I probably better open this up outside instead of inside. And you fix it, you put in a new phone, and you just go, done. You move forward, just done, fixed.

Don't you like everything in your life just to be fixed, just done? And then in a family, everything might be fixed in your life, but then you have a wife and kids, and they have all their issues, and you have your own issues.

And then ministry, I don't know what people do with churches of 1 ,000 and 2 ,000. There's always something going on. And then when one problem's solved in one person's life, then there's someone else's problem, and then there's my problem.

Repeat. What would you say to Naomi as she tries to read her life? What would you say to a pastor? Timothy, he struggles. He's not perfect. He's probably a little timid. He doesn't have it all figured out.

How do you end on a note? What do you tell him? Everything will be all right. Que sera, sera. Stoics have it right. Epicureans maybe have it right. 1 Timothy 6, verse 11. What a great thing for a pastor to hear.

What do pastors need to be reminded of? 1 Timothy 6, 11. But as for you, O man of God, preacher, that's what that means, O preacher, flee these things, pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, gentleness.

Fight the good fight of faith, of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called and about which you were made, which you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses.

Now he amps it up. Rare language, solemn language, courtroom language. I charge you in the presence of God who gives life to all things and of Christ Jesus, who in his testimony before Pontius Pilate made the good confession to keep the commandment unstained and free from reproach until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, which he will display at the proper time.

Now here's where I want you to hone in, right here. He who is the blessed and only sovereign king of kings and lord of lords who alone has immortality, who dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see, to him be honor and eternal dominion.

Amen. Now go back to verse 15. He is the blessed, he who is the blessed. When that word blessed describes God, here's what it describes. God is never frustrated. God is never unhappy. God is never biting his fingernails with anxiety because of what's happening in West Boylston.

He's blessed. He's always content, always satisfied. God is always content. How can God be content? Because he's sovereign and he's moving everything that he's created to a purpose. And there's not one atom, not one molecule, not one child, not one parent, not one spouse, not one job, not one cancer cell that he's not in charge of.

Pastor, pastor's wife, pastor's friends, congregation, church, there's all this stuff going on in the world, the fall, our own sin, and everything in between, and yet God is at peace. God's at peace. He's fulfilled, perfectly happy, perfectly joyful, no frustration.

One man writes, this describes the perfection of bliss enjoyed by the first person of the Trinity. See, everything's going on target. Everything's moving properly. Nothing's happened that shouldn't have happened.

Say, yeah, but what about human responsibility and all that? I get all that. For the Son of Man goes as it has been determined, but woe to that man by whom he is betrayed. What if your view of God was some Pelagian, semi-Pelagian, Arminian view of God that he was so concerned about people's freedom and their autonomy and all this other stuff that he was just this hands off God.

He couldn't do anything until you ask him, until you let him, until you permitted him to do it. I think God wouldn't be the blessed anymore. I think he would be frustrated, full of anxiety. I just sure hope that happens.

I sure hope this happens. I sure hope that happens. If you're a pastor, if you're an elder, if you're a deacon, if you're a congregant, God is blessed. He's content, he's happy, because everything is on target.

Everything's the exact way it should be in the sense of his providential control, even taking sinful things and working them together for good. When you struggle in your life with how could God let this happen or what's going on in my life, you say, I have to walk by faith and I also have to say to myself, I have to go with what I do know.

And what I do know is God's sovereign, God's faithful. I do know that if you start saying, well, how can God really love me in the middle of all this? Could there be a better illustration of the love of the sovereign God than where it cost God his son?

See, we want explanations. Job, Job's wife. Remember later in Job 38, 39, 40, 41, you should probably, if you're struggling with something that's going on in your life, and you're tempted to question God, read those chapters.

Because you're gonna quickly find out you have a lot of questions for God. God has a few questions for you. And then it just silences you. Then it makes you think, okay, he's a father as well. And a father, a good father, would just grab his child and say, the child's in a panic and wakes up all sweaty and cold, and just holds that child tightly and could just say, be still and know that I'm your dad.

Except better in Psalm 46, be still and know that I am the Lord. See, what we don't understand with the book of Ruth, if we read only through Naomi's eyes, is the king is going to come out of all this.

The King David and the King Jesus. There's more to the story than meets the eye. So what do I do in life? I have to go with what I know. I solve theological problems by going with what I know. Number, what number am I on?

Four, thank you, so happy for that. It took me 15 years of gospel ministry to figure out, I shouldn't tell you I have eight things to tell you. Because if I only get through six because of time, then I'll have two people meet me at the door.

One will say you're a modernist pastor, and the other one will tell me, what were those other two points? I'm gonna save those. Fourthly, and probably finally, don't forget God's sovereign, not just over the big things, but the small things.

In other words, remember the degree of God's providence. I want you not to just to think about big, huge world events, but small things. You might be tempted to say, well, God's sovereign over the crucifixion of Jesus, and making Israel a nation, and bringing Israel up out of Egypt.

But what about the small things going on in my life? I'm not on the world stage. I'm just a mother, I'm just a father. Turn to Matthew chapter 10, last passage for today. I want you to see the detail, the exquisite, praise-evoking detail of God's sovereign control.

Sovereign over the crops, sovereign over weather, sovereign over travel, sovereign over barley, sovereign over Naomi, sovereign over you. God's sovereign over you. And what if he wasn't sovereign over things that were bad in your life, or even your own sins?

What if he wasn't sovereign over that, but he is? Every little detail. I know you know the passage well, but I just want you to just let it sink in. I know God's sovereign over big, but he's also sovereign over small.

Matthew chapter 10, verse 29. Again, very familiar passage. Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Now give me these sparrows that they're not very valuable and neither is a penny. And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your father.

But even the hairs on or of your head are all numbered. I mean, think of that. These little tiny significant events, creatures or hair. The hairs numbered, sovereign over small things as well, or few things as well.

Fear not therefore, verse 31, you are of more value than many sparrows. So everyone who acknowledges me before men, I will also acknowledge before my father who is in heaven. But whoever denies me before men, I will also deny before my father who is in heaven.

Do not think that I think that I've come to bring peace on earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. God is sovereign over the most insignificant events in our minds. Hairs of our head, small things, everything in the natural world, everything in the creative world, everything in the animal world.

Everything God is sovereign over. I'm happy for that. Accident, fate, chance, luck, serendipity. John Calvin said, God's providence is a special care toward us. Which yields, listen, an incredible freedom from worry about the future.

If I'm not careful, I could look at the future and feel like my chest cavity is in some straitjacket, some kind of anaconda-like fear, that every time I breathe in, I lose a little more breath. Because I know this world's corrupt.

I know this world's wicked. I know what sin does. I know I'm gonna die, my wife's gonna die, my children are gonna die. You're going to die. Merry Christmas. Sick, I mean, that's why word, faith, heretic, line, dog, false teachers.

They play to people's greed, and they play to young people who are healthy. What do we do when we suffer? What do we do? What do you go tell Johnny Erickson Tada? Quadriplegic. What's the answer? She knows the answer.

There's an appointed time for everything, and there's a time for every purpose under heaven, Ecclesiastes chapter three. And what Ruth is going to do is, instead of seeing now only, you've got to see with the eyes of faith, I see what God is going to do.

I see the flow. I watch what's happening with Ruth, and it starts off barren land, barren woman, the Messiah. I watch Jonah, and Jonah does everything the wrong way. God's providentially and sovereignly sends all kinds of things, and then people get saved at the end.

I see that now through scripture, that there's a purpose and an end. I don't know how people who have a low view of God's sovereignty make it. I am confident of this very thing, that he began a good work in you, will perfect it under the day of Christ Jesus, because he is sovereign.

Please, beloved, don't act this week or ever in your suffering as if God were not sovereign.

No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston, Massachusetts. Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life transforming power of God's Word through verse by verse exposition of the sacred text.

Please, come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 8 .30 and 11 a .m., and Sunday evenings at 6 p .m. We're located on Route 110 in West Boylston, Massachusetts. You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.

The thoughts and opinions expressed on No Compromise Radio do not necessarily reflect those of WVNE, its staff or management.