PROVIDENCE
Matthew 6:25-34; 10:29-30
It has been in the back of my mind for quite some time now that something is wrong with our general perception of God – generally speaking of course. You only need to open the newspapers, or read the comments of friends and acquaintances to realise that the perception that people have of God, in particular with regards to His sovereignty is seriously amiss.
Now why it has never before occurred to me exactly what the problem was I can’t tell you, but recently while reading a comment someone made on an internet website it hit me like a ton of bricks!
When we think of God, we have this image of a loving and good God who will never allow bad things to happen to us as people. Just think how many times have people asked the question as to why God would allow terrible things to happen?
The main trend today seems to be that many are proclaiming that God doesn’t want bad things to happen, but because the world in sinful, these things are bound to happen. Now this is where my problem comes in, because if these bad and terrible things happen outside of the will of God, then God is not in control of them, and therefore He is not sovereign, and therefore He is not God!!!
Listen carefully to this – the fact that God is sovereign means that He IS in COMPLETE control of the world! The good and nice things, but also the bad and ugly things! (What this means in practical terms is what we need to discover over the next few weeks)
Illustration – man falling off cliff – grabs branch, starts coming loose – looks to heaven – anyone up there who can help me – deep voice – yes, just let go and trust me, man looks down, up again – is there anyone else who can help me?
I like this, because this is typically the cultural mentality that we have today! People fail/ refuse to believe that God will sometimes allow bad things to happen to us. (By the way, what we are also going to have a look at in the weeks to come is the difference between God “allowing” something to happen as opposed to God “causing” something to happen)
This little illustration actually has a few very important questions that we need to answer!
1. Is there anyone up there? Important question today, especially in the face of the every growing and increasingly popular teaching that God does not exist! On the other hand of course while many, in fact the majority of South Africans believe in some kind of higher power or some kind of divine being, there is very little evidence that these people truly KNOW who that is! Maybe I need to rephrase that question – Is there a personal being in charge of the universe up there?
2. Now there’s a second part to this little story that is rather significant. Remember the question our mountain climber was asking? He asked is there anybody up there who can ...what? Who Can He help?
This is the question modern man seems to be struggling with. If there is a God in the supernatural realm, outside of the sphere of this world, the next question we need to answer is: “Can He help me?
Can He be of any help to us? Maybe we need to change this question just a little bit, because it’s kind of a two-barrel question. The first half is can He help me, in other words, is He able to help me, and the second half then must follow as: Is He able, and if He is able, is He willing to help me?
Before we get into this part of the question I think it is becoming necessary for me to just deviate slightly for a minute or two. There is a belief in this world of ours, a way of thinking that has largely removed God from controlling His creation! We have often heard of, and I think safe to say often used the term “mother nature”. What some people mean when they speak of “mother nature” is an idea that God has NO control over the things that happens in the world. In other words, and by the way many wonderful children of God believe this, they say that God set the world on a kind of natural course so that the wind will blow at times, and it will rain at times, and the sun will rise and the sun will set etc, all outside of the control of God.
They say that natural disasters, and sickness, and death, and all the terrible things we read about in the papers and see on the television are all contrary to the sovereign will of God. They say that God set a sort of mechanical operating system in place to control much of what happens in the world and that that system now operates completely independently from Gods will.
Just to let you know where I stand, right at the beginning of this series: I believe that God allows everything that happens, from the rising of the sun, to the blowing of the wind, to the gathering of rain clouds which bless us with rain. In other words, what I am saying is that I believe that God is in complete ultimate control of His creation.
“Whatever the LORD pleases, he does, in heaven and on earth, in the seas and all deeps. He it is who makes the clouds rise at the end of the earth, who makes lightning’s for the rain and brings forth the wind from his storehouses.” Pslm 135:6-7
“Thus says the LORD, who gives the sun for light by day and the fixed order of the moon and the stars for light by night, who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar-- the LORD of hosts is his name:” Jer 31:35
“Sing to the LORD with thanksgiving; make melody to our God on the lyre! He covers the heavens with clouds; he prepares rain for the earth; he makes grass grow on the hills. He gives to the beasts their food, and to the young ravens that cry” Psm 147:7-9
There are many other similar verses in Scripture which I could quote for you, all of which provide us with more than sufficient evidence of the fact that God is ultimately controlling His creation.
If we look a bit ahead, and we’ll come back to this later in the series, but if we look at things like natural disasters, I do believe that God has set what is called the “laws of nature” in place. In other words, there are platonic plates that are continuously moving, and from time to time these cause earthquakes, which may in turn cause tsunamis etc. With regards to sickness, it is a reality that there are millions, and billions of tiny little things floating around this very room, and they are called germs. Now germs are not some sort of evil demons, they are living microorganisms that if they get into your system will make you sick.
So, does God actively decide that you will get stomach flu next year? Does He actively decide to create an earthquake in Asia somewhere next month? No, I don’t necessarily think so, but let’s ask the question in a different way: Is He in control over the flu you’ll get next year, or the earthquake in Asia next month? YES, absolutely and without a shred of doubt.
OK, now you might be confused with what I’m saying, because it may sound as if I’m contradicting myself. Let me put it this way, and I’ll continue to use earthquakes as an example: Does God cause earthquakes? No, moving platonic plates cause earthquakes. Does God allow the platonic plates which cause earthquakes to move? Yes, without a shadow of a doubt. Can God stop these platonic plates from moving if He wants to? Emphatically YES! In other words, God allows everything that happens to happen. Will God stop the platonic plates from moving? Aha, now we are back to or second question: Is He willing?
Right, now let’s get back to our man on the cliff, and we are looking at the question of whether God can, and is able, and is He willing to help us. So we have answered the ‘can’ part, and that is, yes He can help us by stopping various terrible things from happening. Now we need to discover whether He is willing to do just that!
To answer this question we need to get back to our title for the series we are getting into, and that is ‘Providence’. What is providence?
I’m not going to get into all the technical and linguistic details this morning, but basically providence refers to ‘God’s seeing something beforehand’. In other words, the fact that He knows what is going to happen in the... future, even before it happens. Literally it means that God sees the future before it happens.
It is important here to note that this is not the same as God’s ‘all-knowingness. Providence is not merely knowledge about the future; it is an involved knowledge about the future! God manages His creation in total awareness of what is going on. If we look again at the second portion of Scripture we read earlier, we read that not even a sparrow falls to the ground without God knowing about it. What Jesus is teaching us there is that God sees the big picture! He sees the ripple effects; He knows how my actions will affect somebody that I will never even meet! He knows what effects my flu will have on my future, what effects the earthquake will have on the entire population of the world! He knows what Paul in New York will think when he reads of the earthquake, He knows what Nadia in Asia will say or pray when she feels her house shake under the effects of the earthquake. He sees the big picture in the finest of details! Even the hairs on your head are counted, and not a single word you ever speak will be missed by the ear of God! God doesn’t miss a thing, in the past, in the present, and in the future!
What we need to realise today is the fact that the God who sees it all, even the future in the smallest of details, and the God who hears it all, is also the God who cares about you! That is why the hairs on your head are numbered! Jesus wasn’t teaching us that God keeps record of our hair loss! He was teaching us that we are of infinite value in the eyes of God – those same eyes that see it all.
So, to answer our questions – is He there? Yes He is! Can He help us? Yes He can, and Yes, He is the God who will help us!
All your transgressions, all you fears, all your tears, all your aches, all your pains, all your worries, all your doubts, all your happy moments, all your sad moments – He knows, He sees it all!
We’re not going to finish this today, but I need to bring this point to your attention. The God who sees it all, is NOT merely a spectator, He is not a God who merely observes what He sees. (scary movie – don’t go in there – but of course you are powerless to prevent it, and you are powerless to change anything that you see) (Even at a rugby game – sit in front of the television, and shout to the guy to run – you can shout at the television all you want, it’s not going to change anything, and you are absolutely powerless to force any change whatsoever by your screaming!)
God is not a spectator, and He is not powerless to change the course you are heading in, and He is not powerless to change what He sees!
Far from it, because God governs what He sees! He has the power to change what He sees. He has the ability, the divine right to alter the end of the movie!
We’ll speak in more detail about that next week, and we’ll begin to see is God is willing to help you in a way you want to be helped.
For today, I think that we can find great and wonderful comfort in the fact that God sees me, my past, and my future, and that He not only sees is, but He is working in my history to do exactly what Paul spoke about in Romans 8:28 where he said: “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.”
May God bless you this week, and give you rest in the wonderful knowledge that He is NOT removed from your life, but is in fact, managing all things to work for your good.
