Wonders of Creation Redemption - Part 3 — William MacDonald

God’s Providence in Psalm 146

Turn this morning to Psalm 146. Yesterday we were thinking about the wonders of God in creation. This morning we'd like to think of the wonders of God in providence. Psalm 146, verse 1. Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul.

While I live I will praise the Lord, I will sing praises to my God while I have my being. Do not put your trust in princes, nor in a son of man in whom there is no help. His spirit departs, he returns with earth, that very day his plans perish.

Happy is he who has the God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in the Lord his God. Who made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them. This is what we were thinking about yesterday, the wonders of God in creation, and some of us have been suffering from mental overload as a result.

God’s Providence and Provision

Now the psalmist goes on to speak of the wonders of God in providence, who keeps truth forever, who executes justice for the oppressed, who gives food to the hungry, the Lord gives freedom to the prisoners, the Lord opens the eyes of the blind, the Lord raises those who are bowed down, the Lord loves the righteous, the Lord watches over the strangers, he relieves the fatherless and widows, but the way of the wicked he turns upside down.

The Lord shall reign forever, your God, O Zion, to all generations. Praise the Lord. I think the wonders of God in providence are just as great as the wonders of God in creation. When we think of providence, we think of the word providence provide.

The connection needs to be close there, and it certainly includes that. It includes God's provision for his people, for his creatures, but it's more than that. In a broad sense, when we speak of the providence of God, we speak of the way he runs the universe.

He not only created it, but he runs it moment by moment. That's pretty marvelous when you think of it. The deists say, well, God just wound up the universe like a clock, and now he just lets it run itself.

Of course, that's utter nonsense. God is in complete control every minute of every day. For instance, he's the one by whom all things consist. That's another question that science can't answer. What holds matter together?

The answer to science is cosmic blue. Cosmic blue is a scientific way of saying, we don't know. But we do know, don't we? Paul tells us in Galatians 1, by him all things consist. The word of the Lord is the cosmic blue that holds all things together.

To me, that's marvelous. Think of God as he who maintains the heavenly bodies in their place. We can be very thankful he does. If those bodies did not stay in their proper orbit, right now, the waves of the Pacific would be dashing over the Rocky Mountains.

They did it once before, at the time of the floods, and they'll do it again in the tribulation period. Just think of that. When the planets are moved, it's going to cause tremendous disturbances here on the earth.

I'm so glad that true believers will be gone before these terrible catastrophes break out on this world of ours. So, the providence of God has to do even with his control of the planets, the stars, and all the rest.

God’s Provision for Every Living Thing

And it has to do with the providing for all his creatures. And that's a wonderful thing, isn't it? I used to think while Desert Storm was going on, what a job providing food for all of those troops that were going to the Middle East.

And it is a tremendous job. Job of logistics, as they call it. But that's nothing compared to the marvelous way in which God opens his hands and satisfies the desire of every living thing. Marvelous, isn't it?

It's marvelous to think that all over this planet, the earth is filled with seeds, and all they need is the right distance from the surface, and the right amount of sun and water in their spring forest.

If you plow your field a little deeper this year than you did last year, you'll bring up plants that you didn't know were there. So, that's a marvel in itself, the marvel of a seed, isn't it? They activated one of the tombs of the pharaohs, and they found some heat there, and they planted it.

Do you know what happened? Egyptian heat. How can that be? How can that seed lie dormant all those years, and it's planted under favorable conditions as it did before? And this is true of God's bounty to providing for his creatures in the oceans of the world.

You know, if all the fish's eggs produced living fish that survived, you could probably walk across the Atlantic without getting your feet wet. Now, that's a scientific absurdity, but you know what I mean.

The bounty of God in providing for his creatures. God is a generous God. More air than he can breathe, more food than he can consume. Incidentally, there's no shortage of food in the world. If you read about famine in Somalia and these places, it isn't because of the shortage of food, it's because of the greed of the heart of man.

People don't want the food, free food, to get to others because it spoils everything. But this is true all over the world today. So, God's providing for all of his people, all of his creatures, too. And not only that, but loving people individually.

God’s Individual Love and Care

This really blows my mind. Among so many, can he care? Can perfect love be everywhere? Yes, he can. What a great God he is, that he can love each one individually. And he really does. And dear friends, if you're a child of God here today, he can't love you more than he loves you right now.

You think of the omnipotence of God, there's nothing God can't do. But there are certain things in the moral realm that he can't do. And there are certain things in the spiritual realm that he can't do.

That's one of them. He can't love you more than he loves you right now. And if that isn't enough, he loves you with the same love for which he loves his son. If that won't call worship from your heart and mind, I don't know what else will do.

The love for which he loves his son touches his love to me, the great God of Providence. And he not only loves us, but he cares, he really cares, not a sparrow falls to the ground without your heavenly father.

Isn't that marvelous? The most insignificant of birds, practically, and yet not one of them falls to the ground without you. You wouldn't think he's interested in such an insignificant thing, an insignificant event as that.

But he has perfect control, perfect care over all his creatures. And I've often quoted Dr. Iron Said, he said, God attends the funeral of every sparrow. And he really does. And not only that, but God is constantly controlling the weather and controlling the seasons of the year.

This is part of his providence. And that's quite a task, to control the weather so everybody's satisfied. The farmer wants him to send rain, but the people going on vacation don't. And how can he please everybody?

Well, the lesson it tells me is, I'm glad man isn't in control of the weather, because we have boars all over the world. It's ridiculous. If man controlled the weather, if God had given that power to us, it would be terrible.

I wouldn't want to live in this world, because the selfishness and the greed of the heart of man would make him control the weather in his own favor, but in no one else's at that time. God's faithfulness in the night and day.

Marvelous, isn't it? This is part of the providence of God. And then, in a wonderful way, God makes the wrath of man to praise him. While he's doing all of these other things at one and the same time, counsel and foreknowledge of God you have taken, and by each side of things, great things come to pass.

Providence Over Suffering and Evil

And God overruled all of the wickedness of man, and brought great glory to himself, and great blessings to us. And all the time he's doing that, God is controlling all the bacteria, viruses, and germs in the world.

Do you believe that? He has perfect control over all of those things. Now, let me just pause here to say, I do not believe that any evil, tragedy, sadness, or sickness comes from God. I don't believe that.

They come from the evil ones. God, in certain cases, permits it, and then overrules it, so that he's glorified, so that people are blessed in it all. God controls every bullet flying through the air at this moment.

He knows everyone. What an intelligence that he can can keep track of all of this, at the same time that he really, he really does. But then God has a lot of hedges to keep, too. We learn in the book of Job that there's a hedge around God's people, and he controls it.

Sometimes he lets it down, and allows Satan to have his wickedness for a while, limited. Satan is not omnipotent. His power is limited by God himself, and that's a wonderful thing how sometimes the hedge goes down, and maybe a believer is is afflicted with a disease, and you talk to that believer afterwards, and he says, I felt closer to God during that time.

I felt closer to God during that surgery that I had felt for years, and I wouldn't give up the experience for anything. I can say with David, it is good for me that I had been afflicted. God working out his purposes in these wonderful ways.

Providence Bringing People to Christ

This summer I was in Austria, and a very young brother in one of the assemblies there, Peter, had four children, and two of the children are epileptic, and the epileptic attacks were so strong that really, really damaged their brains considerably.

So, they don't really have to be told over there, you know. And the Sunday I was there before the meeting, I was just talking to Peter and this little fella over there in the wheelchair, trapped in the wheelchair.

He couldn't sit up straight in the wheelchair, and the other one held in the mother's arms and just flailing wildly, no control over it. Well, what do you say to a father like that? I started to to sympathize with Peter.

He pointed at that little fella in the wheelchair. He said, that's what brought me to Christ. That was true too. He was living a wild and aimless life until that little fella came along. And Peter just loved children, and they're expecting their kids right now.

He said, that's what brought me to God. You know, Job wondered at times whether God knew what he was doing. Job said some pretty strong things against the providence of God. And I love it when God says to him, when the Lord says to him, okay, you clothe yourself in royal apparel, and you get up on the throne.

You sit on the throne of the universe, and you run things. See what kind of a job you can do. That really shut Job's mouth. Not very wise to speak out against the providence of God. I think of God answering prayer in so many languages.

God’s Wisdom in Answering Prayer

As long as we're here in America, we don't think about that so much. It's just one main language. I think what it leaves us, God, is so many languages all over the world. And every person thinks this is the language of heaven.

I go to the north of Scotland, where all my relatives speak in Gaelic. And so my cousin says to me, I hope you don't mind if we pray in Gaelic. We don't like to speak to the Lord in English. I'm sure the Lord doesn't mind.

But just think of him hearing prayer in every language, and answering every prayer. Answering every prayer. Every prayer according to infinite wisdom, love, and power. God answers every prayer exactly the way you would answer it, if you had his knowledge, if you loved as he loved, and if you had his power as well.

And I already hinted at it. How in his administration of creation, he allows man to have his wickedness, and then he has his right. It's interesting that he gave us a free will. And God doesn't trample on our will.

He allows men to have their wickedness, and then he triumphs over it, and has his way. I think it's a marvelous way, while God is doing all these other things that we've talked about, how he's guiding his people.

Guidance and Comfort in Providence

And that's a mysterious thing when you stop to think of it. You know, an invisible God in heaven, and man down here on earth. And yet, if he really wants to, he can know the guidance of God so clearly, that to refuse would be positive disobedience.

Here's a missionary on the field. He's been there ten years, and the going is rough. And quite a while now he's been wondering, is it time to leave? Is it time to leave? So, he's before the Lord, and says, Lord, reveal to us whether I, my wife, and children, whether we should get out of here and go home, or go to some other country.

And that morning, his reading such happens to be in Psalm 37, and he reads these verses. He reads these verses. Trust in the Lord, and do good. Dwell in the land, and feed on the faithfulness of the Lord.

And here's the voice of God speaking. What's the voice of God? You could have read that this morning, and it might not have said very much to you, but that was God's voice to him for that morning. Dwell in the land, and feed on the faithfulness of the Lord.

And on the basis of that verse, he stayed in the country, and carried on a very fruitful ministry there. Not only that, but God's not only guiding his people all the time, but comforting them, too. And that's marvelous, too.

You know, no one is in comfort like the Lord. No. Earthly friends can crowd around and say things, and they mean very well by saying them, but really it's only when the Lord speaks to you that the real comfort comes.

Here's a family in their plunge in sorrow, and the friends are there, and really, really trying to be supported at a time like that. And then the Lord comes to them with this verse. Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning, and their sorrows.

Psalm 30, verse 5, says that weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning. Weeping is just as old as the night gets. And then comes the eternal Lord, suffering in this present time, not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.

It's really wonderful. There's a wonderful lesson for the same one who can number the stars, who call each one by name, the one who heals the brokenhearted. What a great God he is. And this is God running the universe, and he's doing it in such a way that for his children nothing happens by chance or accident.

See, those are not Christian words, are they? Lucky, chance, fortune. They're words that we remove from our vocabulary when we get saved. You know, the Bible is a book on the providence of God. From cover to cover, you can trace the providence of God.

Providence in the Life of Joseph

You go back to Genesis, and you see that dear young fellow Joseph. I love Joseph. I really look forward to meeting Joseph when I get to heaven, and I love to see how God moves men, how he works on the intellect and emotion and will of men.

This Joseph, hated by his brothers, and he's thrown into a pit. I told you he could have said, look, if God is God, and I'm a faithful follower of God, what am I doing in this pit? See, that's what John the Baptist said when he was in prison, don't you?

He said, that's a disease, not a penance. But anyway, Joseph is in the pit. Let me get out of the pit. The brothers are sitting there living it up. They don't intend to let him out of the pit. And months before he ever went into the pit, there's a caravan over here in Midian, and those men are getting ready for a long journey down to Egypt.

And God sets that caravan in motion, and it moves along just at the time when Joseph is in the pit. The caravan comes along, and it comes along, and those Midianites start to talk to Joseph's brothers, who happen to have a commercial spirit, you know?

Only gentiles pay detail, that sort of thing, you know. And look, those Midianites purchase him, take him out of the pit, and take him right down to Egypt, where God intended him to be. Marvelous, isn't it?

And then the poor fellow lands in prison in Egypt. For what? What did he do wrong? He didn't do anything wrong. Falsely accused by a seductive woman, and he lands in prison. That was very important that he be in prison.

In the providence of God, it was very important that he be in prison, because that's where he was revealed as one who could interpret dreams. That's what brought him to the attention of the pharaoh. That's what eventually led him to the second highest place in Egypt, where he had the name Vapnep, Aeneas, the savior of the world.

And all the time that God is doing this with Joseph, he's working in that fellow's life. God is looking ahead, if I can use that expression, where God is talking to his own brother. He's looking ahead to the coming of one century that he's in, and he works out over 100 correspondences in the life of Joseph, so that later, when the Lord Jesus comes, people will say, Joseph makes use of his dreams.

It's wonderful, isn't it? That's providence of God. He comes with a book of dreams. What a story of the providence of God! More of the text. Pre-cumulus, Naomi left her widow. Orpah preferred to stay in Moab.

The route he determines to go back to Bethlehem. Strange the time they got there, wasn't it? God's timing of moves, always. All God's great moments are explained. Wasn't it amazing that if he could have gone to a lot of fields at the time, he didn't?

Happened to go to the fields of Moab. It's just all about what's it all about. God's working out the ancestry from the human standpoint. He does it in that marvelous way, the providence of God. You see it so strongly in the book of Esther, don't you?

Providence in Esther, Daniel, and the Apostles

Interweaving of circumstances, plot within plot, you know. Esther, quiet Jewish maiden, raised to be queen. The hatred against her people. The decree that was drawn up, the law of the Medes and the Persians that couldn't be changed.

A series of banquets, and finally a decree that allowed the Jews to defend themselves. Who could have ever worked it out? Who but God could have ever worked it out like that, so that the Jews could defend themselves and save themselves from extinction, and save the lions as in the times?

I think you see the providence of God wonderfully in the book of Daniel, don't you? Providence of God that can shut the mouths of lions, and can preserve free men in a fiery furnace, so that nothing is burned but their bonds.

The providence of God. And of course, you see it wonderfully in the life of the Lord Jesus, all the life of the house. A decree, a taxation decree. Had to go back to your old hometown. That brought Joseph and Mary down from Nazareth to Bethlehem, just at the right time, just at the right time for the fulfillment of biblical prophecy concerning the coming of the Messiah.

God had it all. Did you see it in the life of the apostles? They certainly knew what antiseptic clinics such as people live in today. A man is so fruitful for God. Exhibit A in the church of the Lord Jesus Christ, and here he lands in prison.

They have a good reason on that. Poor prison epistles. Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, Philemon, and how much poorer we would be today without them. Marvelous, isn't it? And you can say that to John, too.

Vanished to the isle of Patmos. Seems that God's servants are just baffled to fight better all the time. They find the way up is by going down. Here's John on Patmos, and what's the result? That final book of the New Testament, the revelation of Jesus Christ.

The providence of God working out this marvelous, marvelous purpose. God is doing that all the time. If you just had eyes to see, and I think this will be part of what heaven will be like. I think what God will be showing us, how he moved the checkers on the checkerboard, and we will be people.

We will be dumbfounded, and we will fall prostrate. It's going on. If you're a child of God here today, it's going on in your life right now, and you don't realize. And the closer you walk to the Lord, and the more you walk in fellowship with the Lord, the more you will see this marvelous working of God within you.

Living by Faith and God’s Provision

Some of the things I tell you, some of you might have heard before, especially those from Florence. I'll try not to repeat myself. One of my colleagues is John Robertson. He's a commended worker, and God laid upon his heart a ministry of sending books to missionaries.

Missionaries don't get a lot of books from me, and they're cut off from the kind of fellowship that you enjoy, and that God laid out on his heart to send these books up to missionaries. And it just takes money.

I was down for that, and John doesn't talk finances with me. He doesn't talk about finances, and so on and so forth. But I did happen to go down to the post office, and one day he wanted to buy postage for a shipment that was going off of postage in 2000.

The postage was in 2000 dollars. What were the books? One night, John is sitting in his living room in the front door of Bellevue. He goes to the door, and he doesn't call his name, and he calls out, are you John Robertson?

Yes, I am. He says, do you live by faith? John kind of recoils, rather unusual for a perfect stranger to come to your door and ask you if you live by faith. And John started to dance the dance of the seven veils.

You know how we try to evade the issue and hop around it, go around Pop Robbins Barn and everything else, and John had his little speech, and when he got all through, the fellow said, well, do you live by faith?

John said, well, yes, I do. The fellow said, well, here, God told me to get you this. He handed him three $20 bills, and John said, who are you? And he said, it's probably making me a little nervous. And he said, who should I thank?

It depends on what. John said, I've never seen him before. He left, and John said, I've never seen him before. John thought he saw him once, but he went up and asked this man, and it wasn't the right man.

Kind of embarrassing. Now, what do you think about that? You say, well, did he ever need the $60? I don't think that's the point. The point was that everything he gets above his needs goes into the works.

And I think the Lord was saying to him, look, just carry on. I'm the great provider. You don't have to worry about finances. You're doing my work. He'll provide. You don't have to beg. You don't have to solicit.

You don't have to make your needs known to anybody. Hudson Taylor said, God's work carried on, and God's work will never lack. God's work. It makes me think of another fellow that was engaged in a similar ministry, only his books were going to servicemen, and one day he purchased, he used all the money he had to purchase books to send overseas, and his wallet was empty.

And the next morning he went to the breaking of bread service, and at the end of the breaking of service, a woman who knew nothing about it came up to him and shook hands with him, and when he drew his hand away, there was a $10 bill in his hand.

Well, that allowed him to keep his nose above water financially, you know. That week he got a letter from a lady half a continent away. He had no idea, God had no, he had no idea as to any need. She did know that this ministry was going on.

She did know that literature was going out to servicemen, and she said, I'm praying for you. She said, enclosed is a check for $50. So, this fellow wrote her a letter, and he said, thank you very much, dear sister.

At the time you wrote, we had a need for $75, and you provided $50 and sent the other $25. And she wrote back, she said, I've never been more reduced in my life. God told me to send $75 to you, and I only sent $50.

She said, here's the other $25. And this is really what we mean when we talk about living by faith, that God can control the mind of a woman or a man, and move them into action to provide exactly the right amount at exactly the right time.

Providence in Missionary Protection

This is what we think of when we think of the providence of God. But I would just like to say again, I think that the more we're cast upon the Lord, the more we'll see these things happen. Most of us are so well cushioned with various security plans that we don't have to.

Some of you may know a missionary down in Mexico, Don Harris, and he's a dear brother of mine, Clare. And just last night, Don was going off with a group of Mexicans who were hidden some distance away in the evening.

But he always tried to get home by midnight. He didn't want Clare to be worried, and he knew that she would stay awake and stay up until he got home. Well, they're driving along in a rural area. I'm glad I wasn't there.

I know nothing about auto mechanics. All I know to do when the car stops like that is to get out and raise the hood and put my head under it and pray. And so I've seen some remarkable things happen. Well, anyway, they got out, and they checked the situation, and there was no help.

Well, they said, so-and-so is a mechanic. One of our brothers in the Lord is a mechanic. It was miles away. So a group of them started off to try to get to this brother. And then another group said, well, in the nearest town we can go.

But nothing was open. No parts dealers were open at that time of night anyway. They knew what the trouble was. They waited till the day ended. You know, Don wanted to be home. So finally, a mechanic came along.

They finally got a mechanic, and he came along and he checked the car. And he said, the generator's just stranded up there. And then Don says, you know, he said to one of the others, you know, we're sitting here.

There's another place. He says, hey, that's right, there's another place. So they all had a place. It was a surprise to them. There was nothing they could do. Three troops, a Volkswagen comes along, plus a Beetle comes along, and boom, there's this big group of men with their car broken down.

We ride right on. I just do. It could be an ambush laying in wait for your life. They can go down a couple of hundred meters, and it turns around. Passes them again. Gives them the once over, you know, looking at them.

Every time their heart sinks, you know, because I realize that they're in trouble. But, you know, praise the sun. This was a little way beyond them. Turns around. They said, well, probably not. The generator, our generator.

He picked up a Bosch generator, not a Mexican generator, an imported generator. The ones made down there aren't the greatest. He picked up a Bosch generator from the beach. They installed it. The car worked perfect.

A Volkswagen with a Bosch generator on the back seat. If you don't believe me, like John Harris. He got home, one o 'clock in the morning, even took care of her seat. What a wonderful God he is. You think when we're really cast upon him, we can see him work like that.

I know some of you here know Jim Haysmire down in Honduras. Jim was going out on a meeting, and his own car was not working too well. So there was a young Honduran there, and he said he would drive them in his car.

So they started off for the meeting, and driving along this windy road, precipitous road, and Jim was so tired he fell asleep. He started to dream, and in his dream the car was careening wildly on the road.

But as he was dreaming, the car was careening wildly. The next thing you know, the car was turning over. And it turned over so that finally when it landed, it was on the driver's side, this young Honduran driver.

And he was yelling, and Jim was able to crawl out of a window above him, and he tried to move the car. Suddenly the goodness of God, a car passed by, and the man saw them, and he got out in the gym, and the man tried to lift the car.

He couldn't lift the car. He couldn't believe it. A bus came by, and all the men in the bus piled out of the car, and they got under it, and they lifted it up. And here was the dear fellow there, and his head was here, and there was a rock here, but next to it there was a car.

The truck was on the rock. It did have to be taken to the hospital. It had serious injuries, but he survived the day. With all of that mangled metal, and everything happening in a few seconds, how can the God of Providence cause that truck from that place on a rock?

You don't believe it like Jim Case Meyers. I remember years ago, Wallace Logan came back from Zambia in Africa, and he took that verse as his text, Can God Provide a Table in the Wilderness? And he told this remarkable story of how he had gone off with some of the nationals on a safari there in Africa, and it proved to be longer than they had anticipated, and they ran out of food.

They're going along through this jungle trail, and they have no food, and they're crying to the Lord in prayer to provide food for them. Just then, a bird flew over, and it had a fish in it, and a tiny little person.

The bird lost the fish. He must have opened his mouth to tell you something. As the fish came down and landed right in the pond, they took the fish and sustained them until they got to their desired feeding.

Can God control a bird carrying a fish in its mouth, and aim it with such accuracy that it landed in the trail in front of him? Can God provide a table in the wilderness? He does, and he's doing it all the time.

Providence in Everyday Circumstances

Of all the things we're talking about today, he's doing all the time, and he's doing it perfectly. Some years ago, George Burr was up in Kathmandu, Nepal, and he had to leave to go to London. And so, some of his friends crowded all his things into the back of a taxi there in Kathmandu, and off George set to the airport.

And he got to the airport, and grabbed his suitcase, and hurried into the terminal, and the taxi drove away. And then, of course, he realized that he had left his shoulder bag in the trunk of the taxi, and some important papers, too, in that shoulder bag.

He's on a plane flying to London. What can you do about it? You pray. Prayer changes things. Well, he just committed it to the Lord in prayer. He was helping a few people. They weren't going to turn the plane around and get a shoulder bag.

The next day, Ron Kenney had to take a bus to go from Kathmandu down into India, and the buses were of Victorian design. And the bus went along a few kilometers, and then it broke down, and everybody piled out and tried to put it together with a pair of pins and clothes hangers, you know.

And they all piled back in again. It went a few more kilometers, and broke down again. This time they tried to put it together with band-aids and everything else that was available. And they went a few more kilometers, and broke down.

Ron said, I'm never going to get to India this way. And he was right. He never would have gotten there. So, he got his bag, and he crossed the street and waited for a bus coming the other way. And, the goodness of God, another bus, a bus came along the other way, going back into Kathmandu.

And he went back into Kathmandu, and he jumped out, and he grabbed a cab, a cab to take him to the house. And when he grabbed the cab, he wanted to put his suitcase in the trunk, and he didn't find it.

And that's quite remarkable when you think of all the taxis there are in Kathmandu. And when you think of the non-Christian behavior of the drivers, I mean, if the driver had known it was there, it was doubtful that it would still be there.

Yet, the bag was still there, in the trunk of that particular taxi. The rest of the one upon any hail going back to Kathmandu. The providence of that. You see, but that cab driver was an unsaved man. Of course he was an unsaved man.

God didn't control him, under perfect control. I know some of you have heard this story, but I'm just going to give it again. It's one of my favorites, and the providence of God. Some years ago, I was living in Oak Park, Illinois, and one day Greg Livingston came.

He had been overseas with young people doing evangelistic work, and he came back and visited me, and he told me about a discipline problem that had arisen overseas, and we had a good time of fellowship together.