Has God predetermined every tiny
detail in the universe, such as dust particles in the air?
And then I should add here, including all our besetting sins. Yes. There's a great quote from Spurgeon
about dust moats. I don't even know what a dust
moat is, but when I get up in the morning in my room, There's
a window to the side of the bed here, and a beam of light will
be shining through at certain times of year when I get up.
It's shining through, and as I look into the dark, I see nothing. As I look through the beam, I
see the dust in the room. I'm flying around saying, I'm
breathing that stuff. Yes, you are. So Spurgeon says,
Every one of those is keeping its position and moving through
the air by God's appointment. Now, the reason I believe that
is because the Bible says, the dice are thrown in the lap and
every decision is from the Lord. That's Proverbs, what, 16 and
33? I'm not sure. Chapter 16 has a bunch of these
verses in it from Proverbs. Why would he choose the die or
the lot is cast in the lap in every decision? Because he's
trying to think of the most random thing he could think of. And
he says that. So randomness is not random to
God. God is not the least taxed by
keeping every sub-nuclear particle in its place. I used to say electrons, but
now there's something smaller than electrons. Everything in
the middle of the molecule moving, and the electrons, he's got them
all in orbit, just like he has the planets in orbit. So the
macro world and the micro world are all managed by God, which
means, yes, Every horrible thing and every sinful thing is ultimately
governed by God. And that's a problem, but the
center of the solution to the problem is a choice you have
to make about the cross. This is what has centered me
anyway. When you go to Acts chapter 4,
verses 27 and 28, and you read that Herod and Pontius Pilate
and the Gentiles and the Jews were all gathered together to
do what your hand and your plan had predestined to take place
in the killing of Jesus, you have God's plan and hand predestining
the most horrible sins ever committed. Pilate's choices, the soldiers'
cruel mockery, the piercing of his side, the cries, crucify
him, crucify. These few hours in history was
the climax of the worst wickedness that has ever been performed
on the planet or ever will be. And God planned it, that we might
be saved from those sins. In other words, what the devil
did in unleashing all that was commit suicide. And I pray that
when you contemplate believing in a sovereign God who governs
the dust moats, the waves, including tsunamis, when you contemplate
believing in a totally sovereign God, you will center it right
on the cross because you'll go crazy otherwise. You will. These
things have driven people mad. But it won't drive you mad if
you say, He loves me and He governed the most wicked thing that ever
happened in the world, the crucifixion of my Savior and my God. If you
stay right there and then just work out from there as far as
your mind can handle, then you'll be safe. Your mind will be safe,
your heart will be safe because you'll keep humble. People get
very arrogant with these kinds of doctrines. They can use them
to club people, but if you stay with the cross, You won't. Just one more thing on this.
This is right off my front burner because we're reading, you and
I and a lot of other people at Bethlehem are reading through
Acts. Because we're reading through the Bible and we start in Genesis,
we go to Psalms, read Acts and Matthew. We just read in chapter
2 where Peter said in the sermon to the people who had killed
Jesus, You acted in ignorance. He didn't forgive them for that.
He said, they have to repent. You acted in ignorance, but God
fulfilled what He had promised by the prophets that the Christ
must suffer. That's like 222 or somewhere
in there. What that said to me was, again,
OK, these people didn't know what they were doing. God knew
what He was doing. So the crucifixion of his son
was, according to Isaiah 53.10, the bruising by the father of
the son, and therefore the worst sin that was ever committed was
ordained by God, and the answer is yes. He controls everything,
and he does it for his glory and our good.