Mystery of Providence Chapter 10b

On the note of caring for voices, can someone fetch me water? Thank you, Josiah. All right, so this is the end of the long chapter 10. Don't worry, another very long chapter will come soon. We finished the first five motives of the 10 motives that John tells us about in this book.

So we're starting with the sixth one. And these are motives to observe God's providence, the reasons that we should be considering them, and then therefore benefits that should be coming from them as well.

So the sixth motive in this book is observing God's providence will endear us closer to Christ. And this is because there are a few different things. But first of all, all mercies given to us are by Christ's blood.

And he refers to Romans 8 .32 and 2 Corinthians 8 .9 for this, starting with Romans 8 .32. He who did not spare his own son, but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?

Or 2 Corinthians 8 .9, for you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor so that you by his poverty might become rich. This is something he's mentioned a few times throughout this book is for us to remember and ponder upon how much of a great price Christ paid for us in condescending into man, into being born into the estate he was and living the kind of life he did.

He did not live the life of an earthly king, even though he himself is the king of all kings. And it is by this that he has given us all good things. And so this is something that upon thinking of God's providence, we should remember then therefore how big the sacrifice of Christ really was.

So all spiritual, eternal, and temporal mercies are bought by Christ's blood, every single mercy that you experience. And a quote from him that I really enjoyed, sin had so shut up mercy from us that had not Christ made an atonement by his death, we should never have obtained it to all eternity.

It is the price of blood, it is a mercy rising up out of the death of Christ. It cost him dear, though it come to me freely. It is sweet in the possession, but costly in the acquisition. And now it is also by our union with Christ, by our sanctified union with him, that we enjoy the blessings of providence.

Something he pointed out, what we lost in Adam is restored again with advantage in Christ. And this reminded me of an article that Conley sent to me recently about the Donum Super Additum, which is the Catholic understanding of what really happened to Adam's nature when he fell.

So the Catholic, Adam was made in a carnal state and given an additional substance, an additional thing that made him great, and that is the thing which he lost upon the fallen, and it is why they believe that even sinful man can do good.

Well, the Reformed understanding is that God made Adam in a perfect state, and Adam fell from that perfect state, and we are being restored into an even greater state than that. So that is what he's saying when he say restored again with advantage in Christ.

We're not only being restored into what Adam was, we're being restored into a greater state than Adam was as time goes on. And so to not be sanctified to Christ would mean that God's providences would actually further destroy the man.

As we've heard throughout different passages in here, the providences that a man is given if he is unregenerate are only there to condemn him further. So he references quite a few passages for this. We'll look at at least two of them.

Proverbs 1 .32. For the simple are killed by their turning away, and the complacency of fools destroys them. And also Titus 1 .15. To the pure, all things are pure, but to the defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure, but both their minds and their consciences are defiled.

So we should remember that as part of our salvation is that we can actually properly enjoy these providences, not only properly enjoy them, but actually be continuously edified in them. Providences are directed and delivered by Christ's command.

Because Christ is God, we can actually say that all of these things that we encounter are not only the work of God the Father, but also of God the Son and God the Spirit. And he points out the angels minister to Christ and he directs them to their work.

You can see this in the 40 Days in the Desert. And also that any creature that does good to us is actually directed by Christ. He references Revelation 2 .10 for this, which is interesting, so we'll look at it.

Do not fear what you are about to suffer. Behold, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison that you may be tested, and for 10 days you will have tribulation. Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life.

I honestly don't understand why that connects. Maybe I read it wrong. Sorry about that.

What was that?

Satan's got a purpose.

Thank you. That is the right connection. So for those of you who can't, on the recording especially, Satan is throwing people into prison so that they may be tested. He's pointing out that even the works of Satan are things being directed by Christ.

We can see this also in that famous passage from Hebrews, is it, about all things being unto our own good, all things being worked out for our own good. Now we also continue to receive God's mercies as fruit of Christ's intercession for his bride.

Since we are his bride, we have a special place in which he is interceding for us over all the rest of creation. Any one of our sins should end the flow of God's mercies if not for Christ. We should really consider, you know, Adam, we always like to think to him and say like, oh, could I have done better?

But it's only one sin, only one transgression that Adam had to commit before that cut him off from the Lord. It's only one sin that does that. And yet every single day, how often do we sin, knowingly and unknowingly?

So he refers here to a few passages for why Christ is our bridge and our advocate. We will look at Hebrews 9, 24, for why Christ is the bridge. For Christ has entered not into holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true things, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf.

So Christ has entered not just into, say, the temple. Christ has entered into the thing the temple was shadowing, and he is there for our behalf. He is there to represent us, and this is where we will stand alongside him upon judgment.

And as our advocate in 1 John 2, 1 to 2. My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous.

He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world. So being especially the propitiation, he is the justification, he is the one who covers us in his own righteousness, he imputes this to us, and this is for the whole world, the whole world being all of the elect.

And he is the one who is going to.

Restore us in eternity. And now we are restored as well to a more complete state than pre-fall Adam, as we mentioned before. We are not just restored to what Adam was. We are not restored to a state where we could yet again fall in eternity.

We are being continuously restored into a state in which we will no longer fall. Our answers to prayer are obtained for us by Christ himself. If not for Christ, God would not regard our pleas. And he refers to John 15, 16 for this.

You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you. This is only promised to those who are regenerate.

It's not that God does not hear anyone's pleas. It is only through Christ that those pleas are being mediated to begin with. It is only through Christ that we can have confidence that our pleas are going to be answered, those rightfully made pleas.

And lastly, under this motive, the covenant of grace by which we are saved is made and ratified by Christ. Let us look at Isaiah 55, three for this. Incline your ear and come to me, hear that your soul may live and I will make with you an everlasting covenant, my steadfast, sure love for David.

The covenant God made with David was one to typify and to shadow the Christ that was coming, that he was going to have an eternal kingdom set in David's line, and that would be realized through Christ.

He is the eternal king and the king of all kings. And that is pointing forward to the covenant of grace that we are now under, the thing by which we are saved. And let's also look at 1 Corinthians 11, 25 for this.

In the same way also he took the cup after supper, saying, this cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me. So especially as we're thinking about observing God's providences, one of those very common ways that we see every single week is when we take communion, are we really pondering upon what Christ has done for us, the providence of God sending his son for us?

Seventh motive, observing God's providences make our hearts melt for the Lord. First off, he starts off with how God has guided us in our youth, especially referencing Jeremiah 3, 4, explain what he means.

Have you not now, have you not just now called to me, my father, you are the friend of my youth. And a quote from this, from the book in itself, it is the molding age and ordinarily, according to the course of those leading providences, after providences do steer their course.

What he's pointing out here is that God, if he has been invested in you from an early point, which he obviously is because he is giving you every single good thing, it's every one of those good things, every one of those afflictions that helps to steer your course, that helps to even put in place the providences that are to come.

And so we should even be thinking about before we were saved, when we were young, when we were foolish, what was God doing to guide us when we were young and saved, what was God doing to guide us, to prepare us for the things that are coming later.

And as we get older, this becomes easier to understand. It becomes easier to recognize how things occur. The way that I ended up at my college, which is where I met my wife, where I got my job, why I'm even here right now, all of that is itself a very peculiar kind of thing that occurred.

Don't really have time to get into it here, but it's not as simple as someone in my family went to a place and I'm just doing what they told me to do otherwise. It was a grand journey even to end up in that spot.

And so there's things like that, that as you look at your life, you should be able to piece together how God has been working those in you. But also separately on the other end, many people keep the sins of their youth to their grave.

This was especially in reference to the unregenerate, but it is true of all of us. We've mentioned earlier in this book that as when we are younger, our sins are oh so great. And they should in a sense lessen as we have our walk with the Lord.

But it still needs to be recognized that these sins in which were ingrained into us in the early point, whether it be through even the example of our parents or just our own bad behaviors at the time, those likely are the things that are going to stick with us for all and we're going to have to fight further.

I've noticed it with myself, the things that I struggled with most in my home growing up are the things I have had to continuously fight against. It's not that God promises that those are going to occur, but you should be on guard for these kinds of things and be thankful instead to how God has guided you away from those, if he has already.

Now, moving on, all additions, removals, and changes in your life are ordered by God for you. These additions and removals are not just like activities, they are also people, they are places, they are jobs, they are sins, they are blessings, they're all these things are ordered by God for you.

Additionally, if you do not have a wife right now and you're looking for one that is ordered for you for some reason, but when you get a wife that was also ordered for you for some reason, when you have a child that is ordered for you for particular reasons, it's not that you need to look for this one particular reason.

Scripture is very clear about general reasons for all of these things. And so you should be initially just thankful to God for ordering these things as they are and ask for clarity as to how he is guiding you.

God has ordered the seasons of life that you are in. He has ordered the people in your life, the residences in your life. I have lost many friendships over my life, mostly related to maturity in the faith.

And that's just how we should expect things to go. As we, again, I keep referring to the sermon because it was so lovely a few weeks ago about solitude over solidarity. We should expect, in a sense, for these things to go away, for our relationships to change and to be more focused upon those in the covenant community, those in the church.

John asks us to compare how God has dealt with those in your own household of youth. He's referring especially then to your siblings, to your parents, to your cousins. Especially in my family, I can look and say that it is, there was a story he told of a man who had reconciled again with a brother that he had not known for a long time.

And it was a teary, weepy-eyed kind of get-together. But then he recognized that this brother of his had lost the faith. And immediately, it turned around into a great time of mourning for his brother, but also a great time of rejoicing to the Lord for the specific grace that he had received in his family.

This is often how I feel with my family. I have siblings, some of you may know about, that are completely off the way. And for myself, I cannot understand how I ended up in this spot over them. It is as Jacob and Esau.

There are Esaus, there are Jacobs. And you should be thankful, especially ending up as a Jacob. There's nothing in you but God's choosing of you to be gracious. God has ordered, oh, sorry. Compare then also how God has blessed you with providence with how your own heart is oriented toward the Lord.

There's some sub-points in here. In every place, God hath left the marks of his goodness in you, the remembrance of your sinfulness. So do not track only how God has blessed you when you're unexpected, but also remember how he has forgiven your sins.

This is something I'm realizing with my own providence tracking, is to not only track the good things he's done, but to also track when he has killed sin within you. To also track when you have been in long stages of rebellion towards the Lord, and thank him for the recovery from that thing.

Not to steepen the sin, not to relive the shame, but to rather recognize what he has done for you, and to be able to tell that as needed. And also, John asks us to compare both our irrational fear, compare our irrational fears and the dangers around us, and see how God has saved us from those things.

So Psalm 34, four. I sought the Lord and he answered me, and delivered me from all my fears. Remember in that day what faintness of spirit seized you, what charges of guilt stirred up fears of the issue within you.

You turn to the Lord in that distress, and hath he not made a way to escape and delivered you from all your fears? It's important to say too with the passage that tells us that anxiety is itself a sin.

Anxiety is itself a lack of trust of the Lord. There's a sense in which he is even delivering you from that anxiety, he's delivering you from that fear. For the only rightly oriented fear is that which is towards the Lord.

And so these fears are by nature irrational if they are not because of the Lord. The dangers around you are therefore irrational because they are not in the Lord. Instead we should remember how he has saved us and how he has promised to save us.

Moving on to the eighth motive. Observing God's providences begets and secures a peace of mind. Let's look at Psalm 4, eight. In peace I will both lie down and sleep. For you alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety.

So he says that there are two things which destroy the peace and tranquility of our lives. It is a past of disappointments and fear of future disappointments. And again, alluding to what we just said, is there ever a fear that isn't oriented toward the Lord that we would not deem sinful?

If we are fearing a future disappointment from the Lord, are we trusting in what he has said he will do? The answer is very clearly no. And so we should instead go the other way and start to recognize that God's providence is supreme and it is beyond our expectations.

Let's look at Genesis 48, 11 for this. And Israel said to Joseph, I never expected to see your face and behold, God has let me see your offspring also. So Israel had not even considered that he would ever see his son again.

He believed his son to be dead, but God gave him an even greater gift and showed him even Joseph's own children, Israel's grandchildren, and gave him an opportunity to bless them even. And so with ourselves, do we really recognize that what we ask of the Lord is often way lower than he wishes to give us to begin with?

Have we even recognized in looking at the providences of the past what we believed it would be versus what he did give us? God's wisdom is profound even in just what we have witnessed and is meant to humble us.

So when God is demonstrating his wisdom to us, it is not to make us feel haughty. Very specifically, we should be taking it to teach us that he is over all things. Deuteronomy 8, 16, who fed you in the wilderness with manna that your fathers did not know, that he might humble you and test you to do you good in the end.

We should experience and recognize God's help to us as it will quiet our heart amongst trials. Our familiarity with his providence will make us more able to recognize his rods of discipline. This is a particularly helpful one, which is Psalm 89, 30 through 32.

If his children forsake my law and do not walk according to my rules, if they violate my statutes and do not keep my commandments, then I will punish their transgression with a rod and their iniquity with stripes.

We should be able to look back at how he has treated us in the past with afflictions and with providences so that when we are in sin, we can recognize when he is afflicting us in very particular ways.

We should be able to be mature enough to think about the situations we're in when we are being harmed by something or we're brought to anxiety by something. Being able to ask, is this from the Lord in order to bring my attention to something that is wrong?

Is he asking me to repent of something I'm running away from? You have to ask these questions. You have to be able to humble yourself before him and see that he is disciplining you and that he wishes for you to recognize him, to come back and to truly repent so that you can enjoy that as time goes on, so you can enjoy the rest of your time with him.

And we should have enough memory of providence to effectively argue ourselves into new hope. We should be able to look at what he has done, be able to argue against our sensibilities, argue against our gut feelings in a way to know that he has something promised greater for us.

Whether that greater thing is to receive death and to enter into his kingdom or maybe it's something more tangible and immediate, there is a new hope that is given to us and we should be able to know that.

We should compare God's providence towards us with the unimaged creature. This famous passage from Matthew 6, 26 through 34. Look at the birds of the air. They neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns and yet your heavenly father feeds them.

Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to a span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow.

They neither toil nor spin. Yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you?

Oh, you of little faith, therefore do not be anxious saying, what shall we eat or what shall we drink or what shall we wear? For the Gentiles seek after all these things and your heavenly father knows that you need them all.

But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things will be added to you. Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.

This is what he means with arguing ourselves into new hope. He tells us to effectively remember this passage, remember what Christ has directly told us about how God cares for his creatures, cares for his creatures which he did not care enough to die on behalf of these other creatures, but he did for us.

We have a need for it because we fell. We only fell because we were initially gifted the divine image to begin with. And so he cares for us much greater than these in a much more existential way. And we do not trust that he's going to give us the basic things that we need.

And that is itself a sin. That is itself anxiety that we should not have. We should even compare God's providence towards ourselves with the providence he gives his own enemies and our own enemies. He still gives them breath to breathe.

He still gives them wealth. He gives them all these things. He gives it to them to condemn them, but he still gives it to them. And consider how God has acted towards you simply in saving you while you hated him.

He didn't save you once you loved him. He saved you while you hated him in order that you could love him. Moving on to the ninth motive. Observing God's providences will improve the holiness of our hearts and our lives.

God manifests his holiness in all of his works of providence. Let's look at both of these passages. Psalm 145, 17. The Lord is righteous in all his ways and kind in all his works. Deuteronomy 32, four.

The rock, his work is perfect, for all his ways are justice. A God of faithfulness and without iniquity, just and upright is he. And now observing God's holy providence should also make us more holy by then preventing us from sin.

This should be somewhat apparent. If we can recognize how great and grand he is, that should in its own sense make us afraid of sin, make us have a proper fear of the Lord. I know that for myself, this has been the most effective way to fight sin in my own life, especially sin that is behind closed doors, is to recognize God's holy presence, to recognize God's constant presence, and to recognize his grandeur over me and how insane and ridiculous it is for me to sin in front of him like this as if he is not watching, to commit Jonah's own error.

And also observing his providence should even actively help purge sins from us as we fall into them. He references Isaiah 27, nine for this. Therefore, by this, the guilt of Jacob will be atoned for, and this will be the full fruit of the removal of the sin.

When he makes all the stones of the altar like chalk stones crushed to pieces, no ashram or incense altars will remain standing. To point it out specifically, by this, the guilt of Jacob will be atoned for, and this will be the full fruit of the removal of his sin.

So it is the full fruit when he,.

What?

Gets rid of false worship. When he gets rid of the false worship in the temple, when he gets rid of the false worship in the land, when he recognizes the proper holiness of the Lord, the fruit of it is the removal of his sin.

We should be desiring and expecting this as we gaze upon God's holiness, as we think about it, as we really take it into our lives. God's afflicting providences towards us show his displeasure toward us and our sin, as we mentioned before.

That has Psalm 38, one through three for that. O Lord, rebuke me not in your anger, nor discipline me in your wrath, for your arrows have sunk into me and your hand has come down on me. There is no soundness in my flesh because of your indignation.

There is no health in my bones because of my sin. So this is the effect of David being disciplined by the Lord is that he now recognizes his sin, he recognizes his place before the Lord. God, your abuse for our sin should make the evil of our sin clear to us.

God will impede and shame the sinful projects of man. And God produces a holiness in us by chastising us against sins. Again, looking at Job 34, 31. For has anyone said to God, I have borne punishment, I will not offend anymore.

This is a rhetorical question that of course man has said this. This is the main activity by which God is disciplining his elect especially is that we will recognize the sin that we have and seek to offend no more.

And lastly, God also produces holiness in us when we commune with him. Last week, we spent a lot of time discussing what commune meant. All of those apply here. All activities of communion with the Lord should help us to recognize his holiness more and also work to make us more holy in that stead.

And moving on to the final motive, the 10th motive. Memories of providence will be useful as we die. Satan is prone to attack those on the brink of death. He mentions John 13, one. Now before the feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end in Psalm 48, 14.

Well, with that, he washes their feet and then they go on later as well to pray in the garden. He's recognizing that Satan is present. He's doing special activities, spending time with them, spending time specifically with the Lord because he knows that Satan is very present in this moment.

In Psalm 48, 14, that this is God, our God forever and ever. He will guide us forever. This is reminding us what to do. It doesn't say that God will be guiding us until our death or up until the moments of our death.

God is guiding us forever. That includes our death, after our death, before our death. It is something we have to always have within us, especially like this quote from the book. As it is said of the natural serpent, he never exerts his utmost rage till the last encounter.

And then his great design is to persuade the saints that God loves them not, hath no care nor regard for them, nor their cries. But what credit can these plausible tales of Satan obtain with a Christian who hath been treasuring up all his life long the memories of God's tender regard?

So he specifically is telling us that as we approach our death, if we haven't been practicing a memory of God's providence, we haven't been practicing observance of the things that God has done for us, of course we're going to be afraid of death.

Of course we're going to fail in this regard. And so in some sense, you can even think it's indicative of our faith to begin with, if we have been observing God's providence, if the mark of a Christian is that in the face of death, they have no fear and recognize the reward that is to come.

If you cannot come to death fearless, then what does that mean about you? And so it's something to really think of now as you have time to build these things up. How would you act now if you were upon an obvious brink of death?

Would you have enough love and memory of what God has done for you to approach that well? It's something he's asking us to consider here. Death is our last work of faith as we commit ourselves to God.

At death, we receive final mercies from God and go to make an account to him. So if we're going to go and make an account to him, we might as well remind ourselves right then of what he has done, what we've done in which he has acted out towards us in our affliction, so that we can give an account for how we reacted to his affliction, how we can give an account to how we recognized the works he did.

At death, we should make known to others God's providence. As much as possible, we should praise and thank the Lord for what he has done in our lives, especially to those of us with unsaved family, with anyone who's surrounding us in that moment, whether we know them or not.

There was a time that my father, he used to work at Area 51, so he would fly from Las Vegas to Area 51 like twice a week, just like the weird flight thing. And there was a time that they went into free fall for a bit and it looked like they were all about to die and he led prayer amongst the people in the plane, like convinced them that this is worth the time that they had to spend.

And so just think about that kind of situation. You're in a falling plane, what is your last act? Is it to make the Lord known? Is it to help those who are regenerate spend those last moments well and to potentially convince and remind the people around them that the Lord has been working in their lives and not been just ignoring them like they might think?

There's a lot of work that can be done in those last moments. He points us to Joshua 23, 14 for this. And now I am about, this is Joshua speaking before he dies. And now I am about to go the way of all the earth and you know in your hearts and souls, all of you, that not one word has failed of all the good things that the Lord your God promised concerning you.

All have come to pass for you, not one of them has failed. And lastly, at death, we enter into the greatest of God's providences. He didn't give any verse references for this, but I felt like Revelation 14, three fits well.

And they were singing a new song before the throne and before the four living creatures and before the elders. No one could learn that song except the 144 ,000 who had been redeemed from the earth. He mentioned that as we enter in God's providences, we enter into what he called angelic work, angelic laboring and singing before the Lord.

We actually enter into an even greater than angelic work, singing a new song that the angels do not know.

Before the Lord.

That's it.

You wanna have anything?

Amen.