Thanksgiving, Christmas And Providence

THANKSGIVING, CHRISTMAS AND PROVIDENCE

“When the time had fully come, God sent His Son.” (Galatians 4:4)

“The Lord works out everything for His own purposes, even the wicked for the day of disaster.” (Proverbs. 16:4)

Bob Marcaurelle bobmarcaurelle@charter.net

Universal “providence” means that God is in control of every part of the universe He created. He is not like an engineer who created a train, put it on a track, got it going and jumped off to let it go forward all by itself. He governs through natural laws. When we jump off of a building and break our leg we don’t break the natural law of gravity, we illustrate it. God’s control extends to the devil and his angels. They exist because He allows them to exist and He limits what they can do.

Personal providence is when God steps in, with or without using the laws of nature, and helps or hinders individuals and nations. When 200,000 Assyrians surrounded Jerusalem in King Hezekiah prayed and every Assyrian soldier died from a plague. (xx) This violated no natural law. But when Moses turned the Nile River into real blood, He did. This should not bother us. God is not a prisoner of natural laws.

Providence and the Birth of Jesus

God’s hand is all over the birth of His Son. He came at just the right time. He prepared the world like we prepare a nursery for our first baby. If Jesus had been born 100 years earlier; His messengers would have been stopped on the land by marauding bands of thieves and hostile nations protecting their borders. They would have been stopped on the seas by Pirates. If He had been born 100 years later, there would be no Jewish nation. Rome destroyed the Temple and the city and dispersed its people in 70 AD.

God prepared it geographically tens of thousands, or millions, of years ago. Look at a map. Palestine is a tiny strip 50 miles wide and one hundred miles long; smaller than almost all of our States. But God placed it so it would be a narrow land bridge connecting three continents – Europe (NW), Asia (N) and Africa (S).

From the dawn of civilization Caravans from everywhere traveled through it. The strip sits on the Eastern shoreline of the Mediterranean Sea, the super highway of the ancient world. Growing up in the central mountains, Jesus watched caravans and ships from every nation pass by.

He prepared it religiously. The Jews gave the world the idea of one God and a religion characterized by morality and charity. People in the First Century were weary of idolatry and cruelty, and longed for what the Jews had to offer. We see this in the fact that Rome chose its finest men to be Captains (Centurions) in their Army and not one of them is presented in an unfavorable light in the New Testament. They are pictured doing such things as building Jewish Churches (Luke 7), praying to one God and helping the poor (Acts 10).

By the time of Jesus the Jews had been dispersed throughout the world by the Assyrians and Babylonians. As they settled in; as they do today, they maintained their independent culture, practiced their religion, and since the Temple was so far away, built synagogues (meeting places). These became preaching stations for missionaries all the way to the Atlantic.

God prepared the world socially and politically. The Greeks (336-323 BC) gave the entire world a universal language. Missionaries could be understood throughout the world. They created a love of wisdom and learning; so a new religion would be welcomed for discussion (Acts 18).

The Romans (63 BC) built roads that last to this day and kept the peace with an iron fist. Missionaries could travel the world protected by Rome. Strangely there was finally, a universal hope, among the major religions and even the Philosophers, for some kind of universal Savior or revealer of Truth. That is why the Magi were looking for a “King” and came 900 miles to find Him when He came (Mt. 2)

Providence and the Birth of America

“Thanksgiving” celebrates a group of English Protestants (called Puritans) who came to America to escape persecution from the Church of England in the time of King James (1611). They compared themselves to Abraham, who answered God’s call and moved himself, his family and his workers 1000 miles to a land he had never seen. Hebrews 11 called him a “Pilgrim” so they adopted that name.

This was part of wave of freedom in Western Europe orchestrated by God. In the 1450’s the first printing press was invented and the first major item printed was the Bible. Forty years after this, in 1492, Columbus stumbled across a new land trying to find a trade route to the east. That new land was North and South America. Twenty-three years after this, in 1511, an obscure Roman Catholic Monk in Germany, with no thought of starting a revolution, nailed a list of things he wanted to discuss with his church on the town bulletin board. When told about it, the Pope said, “Don’t bother with him. Its probably just another ”drunk monk”.