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Christian Chronicles, February 2000 - Volume 3, Issue 51
| The
Editor's Pen | Perspectives: The Purposes
of God | Mid-East Update |
| Fruit of the Vine | Four
Kinds of Providence | God's Providence in Action
|
| Hope Springs Eternal;
Providence Springs as Needed |
| Our Want and Our Needs | The Nottingham of God | Quotes From God and Man |
God provides. To the Christian, that short sentence is heavily weighted with rich significance. From a theological perspective, the doctrine of providence is relatively concise, and shall be found in the text of this issue, but from a practical perspective, providence is perhaps more all-encompassing than most of us realize.
We pray, "Give us today our daily bread..." and we often at this point in our prayer list the things that we think we need God’s help with. The things that we want God to do for us. "Give us this day" becomes our prayer of petition. We think of our spiritual needs and our fleshly needs, and that’s about it. But God considers far more than we do, and His providence reaches into every nook and cranny of our lives, to give us encouragement, chastisement, love, ministry, joy, peace. He causes us to suffer need and to be filled with plenty. Our God arranges the circumstances of our lives in the smallest details to provide for us every nuance of thought or feeling, to bring about our conformity to His Son and to His Word.
Perspectives: The Purposes of God
And we know that God(Rom 8:28)
How very comforting those words are in times of grief or trouble. How blithely we quote them to others in their times of trouble, as though by merely saying them, those troubled souls to whom we minister ought to be wholly comforted. And so they should, but rarely are. We used 8:28 as a sort of talisman to avoid being drawn too deeply into the trials and tribulations of others. We use them as crumbs of comfort, not often realizing ourselves how far-reaching they really are.Those who translated the Bible into English also provided all of the punctuation. There is no punctuation in the original languages of the Bible. It appears that most translators misread the heart of Paul, making it seem that we are called according to God’s purpose. No doubt that is true, but it is equally true that all things work together according to His purposes. There should be a comma between called and according, so that the translation reads that all things work together for our good, who are the called, according to God’s purposes.
This is a difficult concept, but it is not impossible to understand. It is never God’s will for any person to sin. Never. But, according to His purpose, He does allow us to sin. God never causes a Christian to sin, nor does He even tempt us to sin, so that every time any of us sins, we alone are responsible for the sins that we commit. However, God then uses our sins to teach us or others lessons that we or they must learn in order to accomplish some aspect of His greater will. Thus, while it is not God’s will that we should sin, it is sometimes His purpose that we do so, if only that we might suffer some particular form of chastisement. If this were not so, then not all things could possibly work together for our good, but only the good things that we do. Yet, Paul said that all things work together for good. That necessarily includes our sins as well as our good deeds.
Sometimes God allows us to do hateful things in order that He might chastise someone else, but we are still responsible for our sin of hatefulness, even as the other person is also chastised. The end never justifies the means, but God is not responsible for our sin. He simply works all things together for good to His children. His purpose might be to chastise someone else through our hatred, but we also learn the lessons that arise from our own chastisement.
God does indeed provide everything that every Christian needs, whether blessing or chastisement, and He does work everything that happens in every Christian’s life for that person’s good, as well as orchestrating the lives of everyone in the world for the benefit of His saints.
Paul asked the rhetorical question, "Shall we sin that good may come?" He answered it himself, "God forbid!" God never desires that we should sin. He is grieved every time. But if our sin could thwart God’s purposes, then not everything could work according to His purposes for our good. Though it is never God’s will that we should sin, sometimes it is His purpose.
God’s providence encompasses every aspect of our lives, good and evil. This is why Paul said to the church at Philippi, "...for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure." Paul had said to the church at Rome, "I know that in me... no good thing dwells, for to will is present with me." Our wills are sinful, and do not work according to God’s pleasure, but He works in us both to will and to do for His good pleasure. Two different things altogether. The life of faith does not look at the things of the flesh, worrying about them, but at the Light, serving God. We serve His purposes even when we do not serve His will. God’s providence is greater than our wisdom. Let us be faithful servants.
There are three tracks upon which the processes of peace in the Middle East are moving at the time of this writing. Each is important in its own way in any consideration of the prophetic scheme of things as it relates to the world today.
The talks continue between Israel and the Palestinians. Currently, the negotiations revolve around the final status of the latter. The Palestinians desire to declare statehood, but continue to refrain from doing so in order to avoid disruptions in the negotiations. There was initially a deadline of February 13 by which the parties were to have agreed on a framework for an agreement on the issue of Palestinian statehood. That deadline will not be met, it appears, but the talks continue. The real sticking point in those negotiations is the status of Jerusalem, with the Israelis insisting that they control the entire city, and the Palestinians demanding that East Jerusalem be relinquished in accordance with U.N. mandate 242.
Syria and Israeli negotiators are also meeting behind closed doors, and progress is slow. The meeting between the respective heads of state has not yet occurred, and it may be several months before they do. The issue in the discussions between Israel and Syria remains problematic on account of Syrian insistence that the Jews vacate the Golan Heights completely, as opposed to Israel’s perceived needs for security. It seems likely that a solution to this impasse will include some neutral party, presumably the U.S. establishing a security force on the heights.
All of the nations in the Middle East, excepting Syria and Lebanon, are meeting in Moscow to discuss the framework of the comprehensive Middle East peace which is to follow the establishment of the remaining separate peace agreements between Israel and Syria and Lebanon.
Things are moving rapidly in the Middle East, and especially so relative to the normal speed of diplomatic movement. Once Israel and Syria work out their differences, the stage will be set for the comprehensive agreement referred to by the prophet Daniel (see 9:27). These are very hopeful days indeed, and we should not take our eyes off our great hope.
Christians often attend specific times set aside for witnessing through their local churches. While it is a good thing to recognize the need to witness, the mindset of those who participate in "Visitation Tuesday" or some other similar program is one that tends to limit God to that particular time for personal ministry. And this is not a healthy mindset.
It is not up to the Christian to determine when or how God can use him. Rather, in His providence, God so orchestrates our lives that we come into contact with those who need ministry when they need to be ministered to, not when we wish to minister. More often than not, when we set out to witness to a particular person, God has not prepared that ground and the seed will not become fruitful. The mindset that leads to fruitfulness and reward is perpetual readiness to minister and to bear witness. It depends upon God and not self. The wise Christian seeks always to be fruitful, but he looks to God to determine the time and place of his every act of ministry. It is wise to visit the sick or shut-in or imprisoned according to a schedule, but witnessing ministries are far better when they are spontaneous.
It is generally recognized by conservatives that there are four specific types or categories of providence. Lewis Sperry Chafer outlines them in this way:
(a) Preventative (cf Gen 20:6; Ps 19:13): God uses parents, governments, laws, customs, public opinion, His Word, His Spirit, and conscience as means to a providential impediment to evil. The Spirit, Word and prayer avail much for the Christian; (b) Permissive, which embraces that which God does not restrain (cf Deut 8:2; 2 Chron 32:31; Hos 4:17; Rom 1:24,28); (c) Directive, by which action God guides the ways of men and often outside their consciousness of that guidance (cf Gen 50:20; Ps 76:10; Isa 10:5; Jn 13:27; Acts 4:28); (d) Determinative, by which action of God He decides and executes all things after the counsel of His own will.
Chafer further writes:
The providence of God so combines with human freedom that, though the ways of God are sure, it is in no sense fatalism. Likewise, the providence of God is the opposite of chance. The divine care reaches to the least detail of life as well as to its greater aspects. Certain attributes of God demand the exercise of His providence. His justice prompts Him to secure all moral good; His benevolence prompts Him to care for His own; His immutability insures that what He has begun He will complete; and His power is sufficient to execute all His desire.
There is a fifth aspect of providence which is also recognized by many, called General Providence. This would include God’s "management" of the created realm, including the entire universe, and precluding any chaos theories. God is steady at the helm. We shall not run out of essential elements before the end of the world.
One of the earliest provisions made for mankind by God was the planting of the Garden of Eden. Beautiful, idyllic, harmless and blessed. Surely, the whole earth was as beautiful as Eden, for the curse had not been pronounced, but God made a special place for the crowning glory of His creation, man. (Made for a time a bit lower than the angels, we shall yet judge angels). In that special place was the tree of life. Every need that Adam and Eve ever faced was met by God in that garden. They lacked nothing. Even when they rebelled against God, sinning and condemning themselves to death, God made provision for their salvation in the coats of skins that He made for them.
When we think of God’s providence, these are the sorts of things that come to mind. Long after the Fall, long after the call of Abraham, and after the Jews had been slaves in Egypt for many generations, God raised up Moses to deliver them from bondage. We tend to think of the parting of the Red Sea as God’s providence over His people. And so it was. When they left Egypt and wandered in the wilderness for forty years, God made provision for them. It was a rocky and desert place, with very little water and no place to plant gardens to support themselves. The Sinai Peninsula is one of the least hospitable places on the face of the earth even today, barren and sere. God made water flow from a rock to slake the terrible thirst of His people. He dropped manna from heaven each night in order to assuage their great hunger, providing every nutrient that their bodies required. We think of these things as providence. During the period of the judges, God provided the jawbone of an ass with which Samson was able to slay a thousand threatening Philistines. In Daniel’s day, when he was thrown in the den of lions, God shut the mouths of lions, and we think of this as providence. And it is indeed yet another wonderful example of God’s providence.
We consider Jonah, and how the great fish spit him up onto the dry land near Nineveh, and that was also the providence of God. When he was hot, sitting in the sun on the hills above that great city, God made a vine to grow to provide shade for him. At about the same time, God allowed His prophet Hosea to marry a harlot in order to provide an illustration of the faithlessness of Israel. Much earlier than that, God had multiplied Job’s family and possessions when Job repented. Much later in the Bible, Jesus fed multitudes with less than enough food to feed a large family. This was an act of providence. God provided a coin in the fish’s mouth in order to pay the taxes that the Roman law required of Jesus and His disciples. He provided sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, wholeness to the lame and health to the sick. Miracle after miracle after miracle in the Bible speak of the providence of God toward a people who deserve only judgment.
After our Lord’s public ministry ended and He had ascended into heaven to sit at the right hand of God the Father, His disciples, Paul and Silas, were traveling on Paul’s second missionary journey and had come to the small hill town of Philippi, where they preached. Depriving a Roman citizen of his income by driving a demon from a woman possessed, they were persecuted, beaten and thrown into prison. That very night God provided an earthquake which broke down the foundation of the prison, opening the doors to their cells so that they might escape. Trusting God, they quickly led their jailer and his entire family to the Lord. We view the earthquake as providential. And it was. Later, enraging the authorities at Ephesus with his preaching, he was thrown to the lions, but God stopped their mouths.
Perhaps the greatest of the provisions that God has made for mankind is the Word of God, both in flesh and in print. We would realize God’s existence by the things that He has made, but we would not understand His great glory or His love without His Word to speak to our hearts. More than ink and paper and leather, our Bibles contain the very Word of God between their covers, and that is a greater miracle than any other which God has performed. It is a truly amazing and wondrous feat that God should be able to reduce Himself to print in such a form that finite man might learn of Him.
When we have a narrow escape on the highway, or are cured of some dread disease, we view those things as providential. And, surely, they are, for all things work together for our good, and it is God Himself who makes all things to work together, according to His purpose. Every good thing in our lives we Christians tend to view as providential. It is good that we do. It is proper and fitting that we should recognize the hand of our God in our good fortune.
But what of illness and misfortune? What of the disease that is not cured? What about the serpent that tempted Adam and Eve? Was he providential also? And how about all that old Job had to endure before he received his blessing? Was that also providence? Were the Romans who so badly mistreated Paul and the other disciples a part of God’s providence? Those who crucified the Messiah? Ah, we do not often like to view such negative things as being the providence of God, do we? That bitter quarrel with a loved one, that setback at work, that crippling sports injury; death and disaster ride on waves of human misery, raining sadness and tears into our lives. Do you suppose that when Job sat on the ash heap, scraping his boils with a broken piece of pottery, he was singing God’s praises? Not in my Bible. It took tremendous suffering and misery to break Job’s pride. Was he proud? Did he not think so highly of himself that he actually took God to task for allowing him to suffer such horrible misery? He thought he deserved better. He questioned God. And then God questioned Job. And then Job came to realize who he truly was. Putting his hand over his mouth, he said, "Behold, I am vile." Job, in that moment began to realize the greatness of God. He had gone through the motions before, offering all the requisite sacrifices, fearing God. He had prayed diligently for all his family, and thanked God for all his blessings, but it was not until he saw himself as vile that he began to truly worship God as God. Was his suffering providential? Surely, Job would say that it was.
When Shadrach, Meschech and Abed-Nego came out of that fiery furnace, don’t you suppose that they understood a bit more clearly the glory of God? They knew who that fourth "man" was in the furnace with them. They trusted God enough to suffer being thrown into the furnace, but you can bet that their faith was infinitely stronger when they came out of that fire.
Gold ore is thrown into the furnace also. It is therein refined. The impurities are burned away, and it emerges from the furnace in a much more pure state than that in which it entered. An emerald is but a green rock until it is cut and suffers the lapidary’s wheel. How much stress and pressure must a lump of coal endure before it becomes a diamond? Iron ore must be burned and tempered and stamped and honed before it can become an instrument of healing in the surgeon’s hand.
Sometimes the hard times we endure are chastening from the hand of God, but they are not intended to punish, but to forge; not to make us miserable (though they surely might), but to make us understand the love and glory of a great God who works all things according to His wiser purposes for our good. Job’s friends made a common mistake in assuming that Job must be a great sinner if God allowed him to suffer so. We often make that same mistake when we see our fellow men suffering. It is true that God sometimes uses the hammers of conviction to bring us to a point of obedience, but it is equally true that God sometimes allows grievous suffering only to raise us to the utter heights of spiritual bliss. Job was a man who was upright before God, but he was far more spiritual on the back side of his trials. He started out praising God, even in his suffering. But it didn’t take long before he began to question God. There was his pride revealed. Afterwards, it is certain that he would never have presumed to question God, and his praise would have endured to the end of his trial. God wasn’t punishing Job; He was refining that which was already of great value to Him. Thus, Job’s great trials proved to be his greatest blessings.
We ought not view that which is negative as negative. For there is nothing negative in the life of any of God’s children. Why are we ever unhappy? Always, it is because we think we ought to have something different than what God has provided for us. To be offended when we are corrected is the height of pride. It says eloquently that we do not think we deserve to be corrected. When we join Job in putting our hands over our mouths in times of turmoil and bitter shame, then do we approach with him some understanding of the great goodness of the God who has allowed our suffering. Providence is not only found in the things that please us or make us happy, but God’s providence may be found in every single moment of our lives, as God molds us and shapes us for service to Himself. Even in our deepest misery ought we to rejoice in the glory and the goodness of our great God, for therein does His light often shine most brightly, a beacon for those who seek His face.
Hope Springs Eternal; Providence Springs When Needed
...And my God(Phil 4:19-20)
During the American War Between the States in the middle of the 19th century, the Southern States established a prisoner of war camp one hundred thirty miles south of Atlanta, Georgia, in the sleepy little hamlet of Andersonville, near the Fall Line, where the coastal plain rises up to meet the piedmont. That sixteen acre site held upwards of 30,000 men in a treeless enclave that baked hard in the sun of the Deep South.
Late in the war, conditions were so miserable for the Confederate States of America that they could barely feed their soldiers and keep them in the field. The prisoners in the Andersonville compound fared worse than the Rebel soldiers did, subsisting on a couple of tablespoons of corn meal per day, and water only barely sufficient to sustain life. There were no streams or ponds in the enclosure, and the poor Northern soldiers depended solely upon the generosity of the Southern guards for whatever drops of water they received. The only natural source of water were the wet weather springs that washed out the latrines, and it was not fit for drinking or washing.
The Yankee soldiers had neither cabins, barracks nor even tents for shelter. They constructed such lean-tos as they could with pine branches, and scraps of cloth from clothing too worn to wear. Many were naked, and all were skeletal in appearance. After the war, the commandant of the camp would be tried and hung for his treatment of the soldiers under his care. In the winter, they froze to death; in the summer, they fairly baked to death in the torrid field. All year ‘round, they starved to death and died of thirst. Infectious diseases swept through the camp regularly with devastating effect. Tens of thousands perished during the war.
Oh, how they prayed. Just a gentle shower to ease their parched throats. Heavy downpours were more common, violent thunderstorms and lightning raked the hillsides and pummeled the soldiers with hail. Andersonville was infamous throughout the nation, indeed, throughout the world, for its horrid conditions.
And the men never gave up their faith in God. One dark night a brief storm interrupted an impromptu prayer meeting among the inmates. A single lightning strike blazed through the night. It struck near the edge of the compound, barely within the "dead" line, where the prisoners could not pass without being shot. The next morning, the soldiers in the compound were strolling the perimeter of the camp, as they often did. Suddenly their feet were wet. The lightning strike of the previous evening had opened a spring in the earth, and water flowed in clean new channels across the entire camp. From that day forward, the interns had sufficient water, though the other conditions never of their imprisonment improved. Those battle-hardened veterans dropped to their knees, giving thanks to the generous God who had provided their life-sustaining water. They called the spring Providence Springs, and it flows still today.
How many times have you heard someone say, "I need this or that," when you knew perfectly well that they did not need whatever it was that they perceived themselves to need? How many times have you said those words yourself about things that you merely wanted? The Holy Spirit said through the Apostle Paul, "For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Holy Spirit makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered."
When we pray, "Give us today our daily bread..." we are trusting God to provide that day those things that we need. We are looking to God’s providence and His wisdom, and not our own. When we say those words, we are admitting to God that we cannot provide for ourselves, but we need the providence of a loving and wise Father.
Sometimes our daily bread does indeed include some of those things that we merely desire to have. God loves His children, and if our desires are not detrimental to us, He grants them. More often than not, our many petitions are not in our best interests, however, and our heavenly Father gives us what we need rather than what we want. Do we not provide the same benefit to our own children according to the flesh? The difference is that God knows our every need, whereas we do not know every need of our children. And God sees our future needs clearly, preparing them today for many years hence, whereas our future plans for our children often do not work to their advantage.
We are blessed to have a God who provides everything for us, who also is not limited in His understanding of the differences between our needs and our wants, and whose desires for us are uniformly and universally good for us. Let us remember His providence in our prayers, being grateful for every blessing.
The Apostle Paul was a tentmaker. Being from Tarsus, his tents were probably made with fabrics woven from the black goat hair that was common in the region, and well-loved for its strength and durability. When he traveled on his missionary journeys, and in those coastal cities where he planned to stay for an extended period of two or three years, no doubt he set up shop and made and sold sails to the shops operated by the harbormasters. He probably also sold directly to the captains and owners of ships on occasion.
But sometimes, Paul was inland from the sea, and while there was a steady market for tents, he often had stays that were too short to set up shop and market his tents. Still, even during those times, he needed money to sustain himself and to pay for his travels.
Now, Paul was not like many televangelists. he did not like to ask his listeners for money, and in the richer towns and cities, he often refrained from doing so, simply because he was more interested in persuading them of the gospel than he was in offending them by asking for that which they obviously valued very highly. Corinth was among the richest cities in the realm, but Paul was afraid to ask for their support for fear of offending them. Thessalonica was much like Corinth in that respect.
God might have simply let Paul go hungry during his stays in those rich cities, but He did not. Surely, almost as a rebuke to them for their penury, God raised up the poorest citizens, those of Philippi, moving their hearts to send gifts of money to Paul to sustain him in his journeys.
And that is often the way with God. He moves the poorest of His saints to support the ministries to the richest. It is almost a reverse Robin Hood effect, but those poor who support ministries to the wealthy lay up far greater treasure in heaven than any sacrifice of treasure they might make here on earth, and it is mostly the poor who realize this.
Now may He who supplies seed to the sower, and bread for food, supply and multiply the seed you have sown and increase the fruits of your righteousness, while you are enriched in everything for all liberality, which causes thanksgiving through us to God.
And my God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus.
There are two things I've learned: There is a God. And, I'm not Him.
Following the path of least resistance is what makes rivers and men crooked.
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