Divine Direction Series

A common saying that has become well-known is, “Truth is

stranger than fiction.” When one begins to study what has really

happened in history he discovers that reality if just as amazing and

interesting as anything that could be invented. For example, I read

the story of a drifter in Australia who saw an ad in a year old

American newspaper he found in the desert. His name was Tom

Ellis, and the ad was about a correspondence course in electricity.

He had no money, but he wrote explaining his situation and interest.

His need appealed to the chief engineer of the school, who was

Fenton L. Howard. He taught Tom Ellis through the mail for

several years without any payments.

Seventeen years later during World War II Fenton Howard

was a navel electrician aboard a U. S. ship in the Pacific. A

generator blew apart and he was critically injured. An SOS was

sent out and answered by an Australian ship whose electrician

installed a motor so the American ship could limp home. It did just

that in time to save the life of Fenton Howard. The amazing fact in

the story is that the Australian electrician was none other than Tom

Ellis, whom Fenton Howard had taught across thousands of miles.

The payment was long in coming, but when it came, it came with

interest, for the student saved the life of the teacher.

You can call such an experience luck, chance or coincidence,

and you could not be disproved, for there are things that happen in

life that are not God’s intention, and they are beyond man to

foresee. A flip of the coin could be predicted if all the factors were

known before hand, but since they are not, and since they very with

every flip, it is considered a matter of chance. God does not

determine which it will be, and man cannot determine which it will

be, and so we call it chance. Jesus did not hesitate to use the word.

He said in Luke 10:31, “And by chance there came down a certain

priest...” He means that it just happened that he came by just as the

man who was beaten was laying there. The providence of God was

to be seen in the Good Samaritan who showed compassion, but not

in the priest who just happened by.

This brings us to our text. Paul is praying for divine direction.

He is asking God to providentially work in his life so as to bring him

back to the Thessalonians. This clearly implies that not all that

happens is God’s providence, for what is the need for praying for

specific divine direction if all that life brings us is his pre-determined

direction anyway. It puts prayer on a very high level to see that it

can actually help determine the future course of life and history. To

believe this, however, is to come into apparent conflict with the

scientific world view. For the scientist all effects have a cause, and

these causes can be verified, and so there is no room for God to

break into the chain of cause and effect to alter what is to be. In

other words, the scientific world view is determinism.

Many theologians have this same pattern of thinking. They

have such a rigid concept of predestination that God’s hands are

tied. A more adequate concept is brought out in Karl Heim’s book

Transformation Of The Scientific World View. He pictures God’s

relationship to history like newspaper press. Once the type is set in

presses all that comes out on the printed copies is completely

predetermined. But anytime he wishes the editor can stop the

presses and insert new type, and this changes the material on

subsequent copies. Christians agree with the scientific world view

that every effect has a cause, but they just recognize that the greatest

of those causes is the will of God. When He acts providentially in

history, He does not intervene in the sense that He makes shambles

of the law of cause and effect. He simply becomes a stronger cause

to alter what natural causes would have produced had He not

intervened. Providence breaks no laws any more than an airplane

does when it overcomes the law of gravity by a greater cause.

Paul is simply praying that God will providentially work in the

future so as to assure His seeing them again face to face. We want to

examine the basis on which Paul makes this request for divine

direction.

I. PAUL’S PETITION.

The word here is stronger than just prayer. It is supplication.

There is a fervency in his petition that matches the great gratitude

which he had. The significant factor, however, is the qualitative

nature of Paul’s request. He did not seek divine direction for any