There is nothing really accidental.
By Charles Simeon. Our God is in heaven. He does
whatever he pleases. Psalm 115.3 The Lord does whatever
he pleases, in the heavens and on the earth, in the seas and
all their depths. Psalm 135.6 In his heart a man plans his
course, but the Lord determines his steps. Proverbs 16.9 Many
are the plans in a man's heart, but it is the Lord's purpose
that prevails. Proverbs 19.21 This is the plan determined for
the whole world. This is the hand stretched out
over all nations, for the Lord Almighty has purposed, and who
can thwart Him? His hand is stretched out, and
who can turn it back? Isaiah 14.26-27 My purpose will
stand, and I will do all that I please. Isaiah 46.10 In Him we were also chosen, having
been predestined according to the plan of Him who works out
everything in conformity with the purpose of His will. Ephesians
chapter 1 verses 10 and 11. The Lord Jesus is the creator
of all things, and by Him all things are held together. nor
does anything occur which is not decreed by Him. We speak
of things as accidental, but there is nothing really accidental,
not even the falling of a sparrow or the loss of a hair of our
head. It is true that people make their own plans, and often
with an expressed desire to oppose the will of God, but they are
all unconscious agents in His hands. Indeed, Herod and Pontius
Pilate met together with the Gentiles and the people of Israel
in this city to conspire against your holy servant Jesus, whom
you anointed. They did what your power and
will had decided beforehand should happen. Acts chapter 4 verses
27 and 28. The envy of the Jewish priests,
the treachery of Judas, the timidity of Pilate, the cruelty of the
Roman soldiers were all subservient to God's designs and all fulfilled
his inscrutable purposes. They followed the dictates of
their own minds, but in all their actions God's counsel stood and
he accomplished his own sovereign and eternal will through them.
Behold our blessed Lord in every change of situation, from His
arrest to the grave! Who would suppose that these
were successive steps to the throne of heaven and the means
ordained for the salvation of His chosen people? Yet this was
really the case, and by all these events a multitude of conflicting
prophecies were fulfilled. He sat at the helm and directed
all the storm. Precisely thus He does at this
time also, The multitudinous events of every day seem as if
they arose randomly and pass away without any particular effect,
but He who sees all things from the beginning has ordained that
a sleepless night, an opening of a book, a casting of a lot,
shall all as certainly affect His ends as any event, however
great, or however manifestly connected with His designs. Esther
3.7 Esther 6.1.2 The history of Joseph, whose
elevation to a throne was promoted by events which, to the eye of
sense, would appear most calculated to counteract it. In the outcome,
Joseph said to his treacherous brothers, You planned evil against
me. God planned it for good, to bring
about the present result, the survival of many people. The Lord foils the plans of the
nations. He thwarts the purposes of the
peoples. But the plans of the Lord stand firm forever, the
purposes of His heart through all generations. Psalm 33 10
11