Let us open our Bibles today
to the Gospel of Mark chapter 7. Mark chapter 7 and verse 31. And again, departing from the
coast of Tyre and Sidon, he came into the Sea of Galilee through
the midst of the coast of Decapolis. And they bring unto him one that
was deaf and had an impediment in his speech. And they beseech
him to put his hand upon him. And he took him aside from the
multitude, and put his fingers into his ears, and he spit, and
touched his tongue. And looking up to heaven he sighed,
and saith unto him, Ephrathah, that is, be opened. And straightway
his ears were opened, and the string of his tongue was loosed,
and he spake plain. And he charged them that they
should tell no man, but The more he charged them, so much the
more a great deal. They published it and were beyond
measure astonished, saying, he hath done all things well. He
maketh both the deaf to hear and the dumb to speak. I want
to speak to us today on the subject of God's providence. And I chose
this text which tells us that after the Lord Jesus Christ had
healed this man who was deaf and dumb, that the people all
responded, he hath done all things well. The day is coming, the
day is coming when this will be the confession of all of God's
creation. He, not man, He hath done all
things well. What is God's providence? If you had to define God's providence,
how would you define it? Well, let me give you my definition. It is the outworking in time
of all things that God decreed in eternity. Let me repeat that. It is the outworking in time
of all things in God's eternal decree. In other words, what
God decreed from before the foundation of the world comes to pass in
time. When God decreed or what God
decreed in eternity takes place in time from the smallest matter,
from the smallest of the smallest of matters, from not one sparrow
falling to the ground without your Father, to the greatest
of all matters, the crucifixion of the Son of God by wicked hands. What is God's Providence, it
is the outworking in time of all things that God decreed in
eternity. I watched a documentary a few
months ago entitled The First American, and it's a story of
George Washington's life. And I thought at the time, I
wish that this documentary could be shown in every classroom in
our country. I wish that it could. That boys
and girls and young men and women might realize how blessed we
are to live in this country. What God hath done. There were
several historians, many of them you would recognize, maybe not
by name, if you saw their picture during the documentary. And one
especially got my attention. This historian said, you will
notice that he, that is George Washington, that he wrote and
he spoke much about providence. And then this historian said
this, to us, that would mean good luck or fortune. To him,
it meant God's presence. God's presence, God's providence. In other words, who is in control
of all things that come to pass in this world. Who is in control? Now I have four things I want
to say or deal with this subject. First, there's four foundational
truths about the God of providence that I want to emphasize. There's
more, but I chose out these four. foundational truths about the
God of providence that men must recognize. The first is God's
holiness is a truth that must be recognized when we speak of
God's providence, God's holiness. And I'd like for you, if you
will, to turn to this passage, but it's in Psalm 145. I'm saying that God's providence is the outworking
of His eternal decree. But who is this God that we are
speaking about? Who is this God who has decreed
all things that come to pass in time? And the first thing
I emphasize about Him is He is a holy God. Absolutely holy. We can't even begin to imagine
or to comprehend the holiness of God. Here in Psalm 145, in
verse 10, we read, all thy works shall praise thee, O Lord, and
thy saints shall bless thee. They shall speak of the glory
of thy kingdom and talk of thy power to make known to the sons
of men his mighty acts and the glorious majesty of his kingdom. Thy kingdom is an everlasting
kingdom. How many kingdoms, how many kingdoms
have been raised up and put down since the beginning of time? Great kingdoms, powerful kingdoms,
world powers, they come on the scene and God removes them after
a while. But not his kingdom. His kingdom
is an everlasting kingdom. He is the king eternal. Read on. The Lord upholdeth all that fall,
and raiseth up all those that be bowed down. The eyes of all
wait upon thee, and thou givest them their meat in due season. Who feeds? Who feeds this creation,
the inhabitants of this creation? Who feeds? The beasts of the
field and the men and the women of the cities, who feeds all
these millions of beings that must and require food for existence? God opens his hand. You say,
well, the farmers, yeah. Well, the farmers have their
role, no doubt about it. But without the sunshine, without
the rain. There'd be no food. God, he feeds
all of his creation. The eyes of all wait upon thee
and thou givest them their meat in due season. Thou openest thine
hand and satisfies the desire of every living thing. Now watch
this. The Lord is righteous in all
his ways and holy in all His works. Providence is the work
of God. It's His work. And one foundational
truth that must be believed and known and recognized is that
God is holy. He's the thrice holy God. Why
do we call Him the thrice holy God? Because when Isaiah the
prophet was given a vision into heaven, he saw the Lord high
and lifted up, and the seraphim cried, holy, holy, holy, the
thrice holy God, and because he exists in a trinity of persons,
holy, the Father, holy, the Son, holy, the Spirit, the thrice
holy God. When we talk about God's decree
in eternity being worked out in time, we must recognize that
we're talking about the God who is absolutely holy. God that Abraham said, shall
not the God of all the earth do just or shall not the judge
of all the earth do just, be righteous? And certainly he will,
because that's his nature. Because that's who He is. God
cannot deny Himself. And if He ever did one thing
that was not perfectly, absolutely holy, then He would change. He would deny Himself. He would
not be the God of the Bible, the God and Father of our Lord
Jesus Christ. A second foundational truth is
God's wisdom is the truth that must be recognized when we speak
of his providence. God's wisdom, in Isaiah chapter
40 and verse 28, God asked this question, hast thou not known?
Hast thou not heard that the everlasting God, the Lord, the
creator of the ends of the earth, faints not? Neither is weary,
there is no searching of his understanding." No searching
of God's wisdom, God's knowledge, God's understanding. Man, with all of his learning, is at such a disadvantage. in
comparison to God Almighty, the wisdom of God. He's too wise
to have made a mistake. He's too holy to have done or
to do, to ordain anything that would be evil, that would be
wrong. He's too wise to make a mistake. And how foolish is
it for man, for man to live in God's creation where everything,
if we had eyes to see where everything in God's creation testifies to
his infinite wisdom. How foolish for a man to live
in God's creation and to deny that he is not now working all
things after the counsel of his own will. It's strange for men who profess
to believe that God is the creator of all things, but then to think
that he's not the governor of all things, that he's just kind
of created this creation of his and wiped his hands of it and
pulled back and just let things run, just let things go. Oh, no, no. He's too wise. It's foolish, isn't it, for people
who confess that they believe that God is the creator, but
not the governor. A third truth, a foundational
truth, is God's power. God's power must be recognized
when we speak of his providence. Is there anything that is outside
his control? Is there anything that escapes
his rule? Is there a speck of dust somewhere in his universe that's
somehow outside of his sovereign rule? Is he at any time like those
false gods that The prophets prayed too when Elijah confronted
them on Mount Carmel. Our God is the God of the Bible,
the God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ, like any of those
gods. When Elijah mocked them, mocked
those prophets, saying, maybe your God's talking. Maybe he's
talking. Maybe he's pursuing. Maybe he's
taking a journey. Maybe he's gone to sleep. Cry,
cry, cry a little louder. Is that the God of the Bible?
You know, a preacher friend of mine who's since gone to be with
the Lord, but he wrote this article one time, and he said that when
Satan tempted Eve in the garden, he came with a temptation to
eat and to be like God. We know that failed. They ate,
but they did not become like God. But he said, since that
time, man has created himself a God like himself. The temptation
was eat and become like God. That didn't work. Man failed. Man became depraved. Man is born
a sinner in this world, and since that time, we've made ourselves
a God like us. Instead of us becoming like God,
we've manufactured a God like ourselves. And I know that's
true for most people, if not everyone, when we first come
into this world, apart from the saving grace of God. We'll have
a God. Make no mistake about that. We're
going to have a God. Everyone is. But is it the God
of the Bible? Is it the God of creation? Or
is it just someone that we've thought up in our minds? And
when we do that, we always make him somehow smaller than we are. Somehow one that we can control. We can manipulate some way or
the other. You read about it in Romans chapter
one, don't you? Man started off with a God and
he whittled him down and whittled him down some more and whittled
him down some more until he's got a God he's worshiping like
a flea, a fly, a cockroach, something crawling, something so small. And a fourth fundamental truth
about God, when we think about Him being the God of providence,
is His glory. His glory. In Proverbs 16, in verse 4, the
scripture says, The Lord hath made all things for Himself.
Yea, even the wicked for the day of evil. The glory of God. Let me read you these few verses.
I'm sure you're very familiar with them. Romans chapter 11,
this is when it seems like the Apostle Paul just comes to the
end of himself. And how do you figure this out? God has set aside the Jews and
called them the Gentiles. How do you explain this? Oh, the depth of the riches,
both of the wisdom and knowledge of God. How unsearchable are
his judgments and his ways past finding out. For who hath known
the mind of the Lord or who hath been his counselor, or who hath
first given to him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again. Now listen, for of him, and through
him, and to him are all things to whom be glory forever. I saw the title to a man's sermon
recently, and the title was this. It's kind of catchy. What in
the world is wrong with our world? What in the world is wrong with
our world? And knowing that he is a man
who denies the absolute sovereignty of God in all things, I thought
to myself, well, just maybe one thing that is wrong is not recognizing
that this is God's world. It's not our world. It's God's
world. He created it. He made it. Just as He created all things
upon His globe, the earth, and all things for His own glory. All things. I have no doubt that one day
all creation will join and say the very same things those Galileans
said when they saw the Lord Jesus Christ open that man's ears and
unloose his tongue, he had done all things well. All things. important truth, that is the
truth of God's providence, God's word, not our feelings, not what
grandma said, not what we've always thought, but what does
the word of God declare to the law and to the testimony. This
subject is every subject. You want to know about how a
man can be right with God, how a man may be just with God. Where
are we going to go to find that out? to the Word of God, to the
Word of God. The psalmist David wrote in Psalm
119, I esteem all, all thy precepts concerning all things to be right. I esteem thy precepts concerning
creation to be right. I don't need some geologist to
study some fossil and to tell me that the Bible is true. We have the word of God. In the
beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. And as the scripture
says in Hebrews chapter 11, through faith we understand that the
world was framed by the word of God. The psalmist said, I esteem thy
precepts concerning all things to be right. Concerning creation,
yes, what God has declared, that's right. Let God be true, and every
man a liar. God spoke this world into existence. I esteem thy precepts concerning
salvation to be right. Salvation is of the Lord. That's what the scripture says.
And I esteem thy precepts to be right about providence as
well. There are many devices. In Proverbs
19 and verse 21, we read, there are many devices in a man's heart. You know that's so. You have
a number of thoughts in your mind Things about maybe this
afternoon, maybe tomorrow, maybe this week. Many devices in a
man's heart. Nevertheless, the counsel of
the Lord, that shall stand. Think of the many devices that
were in that man's heart in one of the Lord's parables. Remember
our Lord told a parable of a man whose fields, they just produce
so much. I mean, there was a bumper crop
that year. He had so much. And here was
his devices. I'm going to pull down my barns.
That's what I'm going to do. I'm going to destroy these barns,
pull them all down. I'm going to build bigger barns,
greater barns. And then I'm going to bestow
all my crops Everything that the fields have produced into
my barns, and I'm going to say to my soul, thou hast much goods
laid up for many years. Take thine ease, eat, drink,
and be merry. Those were the devices in that
man's heart, but the counsel of the Lord. that shall stand. Tonight, tonight thou shall meet
God. Proverbs 16 verse 1 says the
preparations, that is in the margin there, the disposing of
the heart and the answer of the tongue is from the Lord. I'll just remind us of this illustration
of God's providence. You're familiar with it. There
was a wicked king named Ahab, king of Israel, and he went out
to battle one day. Before that, he called his prophets,
his false prophets together, and asked, should he go up? Should
he go up to fight this battle? And they all said, go up, go
up, go up. God's going to deliver them into
your hands. And a godly king who had come
among them said, isn't there a prophet of the Lord here? Oh,
there's one. Well, let's see what he has to
say. And what did he say? He said,
you're not coming home today, king. You're not coming home
today from the battle. If you do, God hasn't spoken
by me. And you know the history, they
went out to battle, and the king, he even disguised himself so
they wouldn't recognize, the enemy wouldn't recognize him
as the king of Israel. And the scripture says that one
soldier pulled his bow, shot that arrow at a venture, and
where did it go? It went and it struck wicked
King Ahab. And he told the driver of his
chariot, take me out. Take me out of the battle, for
I'm wounded. And they washed his blood out
of that chariot that night. The prophet, can you imagine
that? Shooting an arrow at a venture. The wind, and everything that
would have been involved. And yet, God had said, you're
not coming home today, through his prophet. God took that man
out. Thomas Boston commenting on the
words of the Apostle Paul when he was preaching in Acts on Mars
Hill. And think about this. He's preaching
to people who believed in many different gods of an unknown
God and all kinds of false philosophies, the Epicureans, the Stoics, They're
all there to hear him. And the apostle Paul, among other
things, he told them this. For in him, this God that you
say is unknown, the Lord Jesus Christ, that's who he's preaching
to them. For in him, we live, move, and have our being. Well, that's just talking to
Christians. He wasn't talking to just Christians. He was talking
to people who had probably never heard the gospel before. It's
true of all men. In Him, in Christ, He gives us
life. He gives us breath. But the point
that really struck home to me, that word move. We live, we move. We can't even move. You can't
move out of your place where you're sitting today. I can't
move out of this place apart from Christ. In Him we live, we move, we have
our being. But Thomas Boston wrote, God
does not make man as the carpenter doth the ship. I like this illustration. God doesn't make man as the carpenter
doth the ship, which afterwards sails without him. Man makes
the ship, and they inaugurate it, and it takes off sailing
with the wind. He's still on land. No, no. But he, that is God, He rules
and guides him, sitting at the helm to direct and order all
his motions, where he gives grace and excites it, working in them
both to will and to do of his good pleasure. Now listen, but
also their evil actions, wherein they are under the hand of providence,
but in a very different manner. And then, of course, he went
on to explain how it is that God's providence reaches even
to sinful actions, evil actions. God neither puts evil into the
hearts of men. God doesn't stir them up to evil. Remember, God is holy, and the
scripture tells us God cannot be tempted with evil, neither
tempteth he any man. God permits sin when He does
not hinder it. When He does not hinder man from
sinning, He permits sin where He is not obliged to hinder it. Now this is very important. Don't
miss this. God's end in permitting sin is
altogether different from man's end in committing sin. God's end, His purpose, in permitting
sin is altogether different from man's end in sinning. But the thought that came to
my mind is, what if that believers, sometimes God's
children, live with a burden from the lack of understanding
this truth about providence, that it's all-inclusive. It includes everything, good
actions as well as evil actions. How many people live with a burden
on their heart? What if? What if I had done this? What if I had not done that? There are no what ifs with God. We've got to get a hold of that.
Everything that takes place in time, God decreed in eternity. There's no what ifs. The greatest
example, of course, and I call your attention to that in Acts
chapter 2, verses 22 and 23, the greatest example of how God
decrees evil, but His end is good, while the perpetrators
of the evil, their end is evil. In Acts chapter 2 and verse 22, The Apostle Peter on the day
of Pentecost says, You men of Israel hear these words, Jesus
of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you by miracles and
wonders and signs, which God did by him in the midst of you,
as you yourselves also know. Now watch this, him being delivered
by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God. You have
taken and you're responsible. You are a responsible being. You, of your own will, your own
fallen will, your own desire, you have taken and by wicked
hands have crucified and slain. Do you see how He was delivered,
the Lord Jesus Christ was delivered to be crucified by God's counsel,
God's decree, God's purpose. And God's end in doing that is
good. The salvation of his elect people. But the man who perpetrated the
crime, They were responsible, their end, their motive, their
purpose was evil and only evil. We will not have this man to
rule over us. You see the same action, the
crucifixion of Christ, God's end to save many. sinners. Man's end was to rid themselves
of the Lord Jesus Christ out of hatred and malice. Let me mention the third truth,
the truth of God's providence. There are several areas that
are suggested to us when we think about God's providence. I'm just
going to name them hurriedly and not comment. Number one,
we must never use this truth as an excuse for sin. Number
two, we must be careful about murmuring under God's providence. Number three, we must put away
anxious cares. Why are we worried? Why are we
so anxious? As though we somehow were in
control. Our Heavenly Father is at the
helm. Remember that story about that
boy along with other passengers crossing the sea and they came
into a turmoil and And the boy, he just seemed to be at peace.
And the passengers, they were nervous, you know. And someone
asked him, why aren't you afraid? Why aren't you concerned? He
said, because my dad, he's the captain of the ship. My father's
the captain of the ship. Every child of God, we can say
the same thing, right? He's the captain of the ship.
He's in control. All things are in His hands.
And we must not forget that God is a God who ordains means, but
He can work without means, and has. And number five, we must,
as God's redeemed people, rejoice in the Lord, who makes all things
work together for the good of His people. The last point, I
have a special word to our graduates here today. A special word to
each one of you. It is God's providence, recognize
this, young people. It is God's providence that placed
you here at this time. On the day that you were born
There were no doubt others who were aborted. Others who lived
only maybe a few minutes, a few hours, or a few days. Not so
with you. God has kept you in life to this
day. God gave you parents to love
and to care for you. And God in his providence also
has given you the gifts and the talents you needed to meet the
requirements for your graduation. God's providence has placed you
under the sound of the gospel. Don't, don't forget these words
of the Savior, to whom much is given, much is required. May the Lord bless this work. You know, this subject is so
big. And I'm so... It's so big. It's so big. But let's rejoice. Those of us
who know Christ as our Savior, let's rejoice today in knowing
that our Father, he's in control. He's in control.