This morning we return to our Catechism to take up the issue of comfort. The Catechism specifies that we find comfort in knowing our sin and misery, in knowing how we have been delivered from that sin and misery and in knowing how we can express gratitude for redemption from that sin and misery.
But I want to contend that there are places to find comfort as well in the Catechism besides the broad brush strokes that it gives and one place to find that is in Lord’s Day #10 where we are taught about God’s providence.
Of course, as Calvinists, that is to say, as Biblical Christians, we understand God’s providence to reference God’s daily control of all things from the changing of the seasons, to the conception and birth of our children. From the gainful employment we have to the pink slip unexpectedly received. From the “chance” encounter with the person we would end up marrying to the hour our unions would end because of death. In all these matters and all others as Calvinists we believe that
“God is in control
We believe that His children will not be forsaken
God is in control
We will choose to remember and never be shaken
There is no power above or beside Him, we know
Oh, God is in control, oh God is in control”
This is what the Scriptures teach and this is what our catechism teaches w/ Q. 27.
27. What do you understand by the providence of God?
Now we should start here by observing that clearly the catechizers desired for we, as the catechumens, to know about this doctrine of God’s providence. They placed it here to explain the character of God when we confess from the Apostle’s creed, “I believe in God the Father almighty, Creator of heaven and earth.”
The Catechizers desire for us to remember what they teach and as we will se they desire for us to remember this so that we will not be shaken by seeing things that might otherwise upset us if we were not confident of this truth of God’s providence.
And so to fill us with this confidence the Catechizers, following Scripture teach that we are to understand the Providence of God as,
The almighty, everywhere-present power of God,1 whereby, as it were by His hand, He still upholds heaven and earth with all creatures,2 and so governs them that herbs and grass, rain and drought, fruitful and barren years, meat and drink,3 health and sickness,4 riches and poverty,5 indeed, all things come not by chance, but by His fatherly hand.
[1] Acts 17:25–26. [2] Heb. 1:3. [3] Jer. 5:24; *Acts 14:17. [4] Jn. 9:3. [5] Prov. 22:2; *Ps. 103:19; Rom. 5:3–5a.
Let us break this down. They start with talking about the “almighty, everywhere present power of God.” In theological language this speaks of God’s omnipotent power being omnipresent. God’s power is without limit and it is never absent from the Christian. Of course, when we speak of God’s almighty, everywhere present power we are not abstracting God Himself for where God’s almighty, everywhere present power is so is God Himself.
The Scripture teaches this almighty everywhere present power of God when Jonah went into the bowels of the sea (Jon. 1:3), after foolishly thinking he could flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord.
Ps. 23 speaks of this almighty everywhere present power of God when we learn that
“Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil;
For Thou art with me;
Thy rod and Thy staff, they comfort me.”
Because of His confidence in the almighty and everywhere present power of God the Psalmist could write
27:3 Though an army besiege me,
my heart will not fear;
though war break out against me,
even then I will be confident.
Of course you see the comfort that this provides and the confidence that we can swell with when we believe and embrace the reality of the almighty and everywhere present power of the God who exercises that almighty and everywhere present power in the governance of His people’s lives.
But the Catechizers do not stop there. They make sure we know that this providence of God … this almighty and everywhere present power of God is personal. They do so, by using the phrase,
as it were by His hand, He still upholds heaven and earth with all creatures,2
The God we serve is not an abstraction. He is not impersonal. He personally involved in His creation in its day to day sustaining and governance. Listen to God’s Word from Psalm 104 testifying how intimate God is involved w/ His creation… as by His hand, he still upholds heaven and earth w/ all creatures,
He makes springs pour water into the ravines;
it flows between the mountains.
11 They give water to all the beasts of the field;
the wild donkeys quench their thirst.
12 The birds of the sky nest by the waters;
they sing among the branches.
13 He waters the mountains from his upper chambers;
the land is satisfied by the fruit of his work.
14 He makes grass grow for the cattle,
and plants for people to cultivate—
bringing forth food from the earth:
15 wine that gladdens human hearts,
oil to make their faces shine,
and bread that sustains their hearts.
16 The trees of the Lord are well watered,
the cedars of Lebanon that he planted.
17 There the birds make their nests;
the stork has its home in the junipers.
18 The high mountains belong to the wild goats;
the crags are a refuge for the hyrax.
19 He made the moon to mark the seasons,
and the sun knows when to go down.
20 You bring darkness, it becomes night,
and all the beasts of the forest prowl.
21 The lions roar for their prey
and seek their food from God.
22 The sun rises, and they steal away;
they return and lie down in their dens.
23 Then people go out to their work,
to their labor until evening.
It was the Enlightenment that locked God out of His planet … who made God remote. The rise of reason and godless science as King, emptied the world where the hand of God upholds all of His creation. Some folks today write of how the world we live in has been de-mythologized. What some of them mean is that it has lost all its wonder and marvel because the personal hand of a personal God has been removed from our thinking.
From this hand of the personal God who is intimately sustaining all things for His creatures we learn that God’s providence means that God remains the governor. This is yet another term, along with “uphold” that bespeaks of God’s intimate personal involvement w/ His creation.
Our Fathers … these Catechizers lived in a world that was riven with the presence of God. They understood all of life in terms of God’s upholding and governing their lives. All that came into their lives they understood as not coming into their lives by secondary causes or by the non-existent thing called “chance.” They believed that God was upholding and governing their lives.
And they understood this upholding and governing to cover all things … and they list some of those things,
that herbs and grass, rain and drought, fruitful and barren years, meat and drink,3 health and sickness,4 riches and poverty,5 indeed, all things come not by chance, but by His fatherly hand.
See how totalistic they understood God’s providence to be. Notice also they speak all of it as coming to God’s people by His fatherly hand. This Lord’s Day is being especially applied to the people of God. We know this because those who are not God’s people only know the hand of God’s judgment and know nothing of God’s fatherly hand.
It all comes to us by God’s fatherly hand. If we believe this then we receive all as coming from God’s fatherly hand. We accept living in the context of a faithless church as coming from His fatherly hand. We accept the joy of the presence of the remnant around us as from His fatherly hand. We accept the insanity of juries not convicting murdering mothers as from His fatherly hand, we accept justice being done when it is done from His fatherly hand. We accept communities celebrating the aberrant as from His fatherly hand, and we accept the glad news that God is still calling redeeming His people.
That is the thrust of this confession of God’s upholding and governing all things. This is God’s World and though the wrong is oft so strong God is the ruler yet. We sing heralding this Providence of God,
Unfolding every hour:
The bud may have a bitter taste,
But sweet will be the flower.
And scan His work in vain;
God is His own Interpreter,
And He will make it plain.
The thrust of this is that this is not a random world full of chance events. The thrust of this is to make us confident that even when we don’t understand God’s providence we can trust that God does understand God’s providence and that there is purpose in what we see as madness. We can find our equilibrium … our stability in all this cultural and ecclesiastical madness by embracing and owning this truth about God’s providence.
The Catechizers get at this when they ask and answer,
28. What does it profit us to know that God created, and by His providence upholds, all things?
That we may be patient in adversity, 1 thankful in prosperity, 2 and for what is future have good confidence in our faithful God and Father, that no creature shall separate us from His love, 3 since all creatures are so in His hand, that without His will they cannot so much as move.4
[1] Rom. 5:3; Jas. 1:3; Job 1:21. [2] Deut. 8:10; 1 Th ess. 5:18. [3] Rom. 8:35, 38–39. [4] Job 1:12; Acts 17:25–28; Prov. 21:1; *Ps. 71:7; *2 Cor. 1:10.
I preached this sermon this morning because, I am myself working on being “patient in adversity.” I am reminded of our Fathers and how patient they were in adversity. Father Job with all the scrouges visited upon Him. Father Joseph with the years in the dankest of dungeons. Father Daniel keeping time with ravenous beasts. Fathers Chrysostom, Augustine, Justin Martyr who were patient in adversity when contending against the Jews. Fathers Luther, Calvin, Knox, Ridley who knew a good deal about adversity.
They and we learn through adversity that the testing of our faith produces [a]patience as James teaches and as Paul teaches suffering produces perseverance.
Look at the adversity we are living in.
The Maine Supreme Court unanimously upheld a custody order on Monday giving a father veto power over a mother’s decisions to take their daughter to church or read her the Bible, largely barring the child’s religious upbringing.
Our allegedly conservative churches are hounding the most honorable and Christian men from their posts. Further, they are denouncing the idea of Christian Nationalism as if the idea has never been embraced by the Church historical.
A friend wrote me this week w/ another example,
My wife’s 92 year old great great Aunt passed away and she asked that Jenny’s brother Jonah do her funeral service.
He has credentials and has been a associate pastor off and on while bivocational since college.
The FEMALE “pastor” of the Methodist church that the great great Aunt used to attend and where the services will be held demanded to see Jonah’s credentials because the female Pastorette didn’t want someone who wasn’t qualified to do the service.
Now these are just three examples of the cultural adversity we are facing. This does not mention the personal adversities. The point in all of this though is that God is not absent. God is putting us in the refiners fire in order to make the best of steel, and God will use these hard times to create strong men who will rise up and put to flight the enemy.
And so the encouragement this morning is found in the Catechism in four ways,
I.) For what is future we can have good confidence in our faithful God and Father that no creature shall separate us from His love
They have explained God’s rule. They have told us, following Scripture, that God is our Father. The future belongs to the God who loves us for the sake of Jesus Christ. Of all people, despite the opposition we should the people characterized as having good confidence.
They cite Romans 8 here which teaches us that nothing can separate us from the Love of God. NOTHING. No adversity that God sends. No opposition from God’s enemies. No sorrow that enters our lives.
Here we are covered with the righteousness of Jesus. We can no more be touched by the enemy without God’s assignment than Christ can be touched at God’s right hand. We are impervious to any hostility or adversity that isn’t assigned by a triune God who loves us and hates those who hate His people.
Be of good cheer little flock. The future is bright and so your confidence should be brimming.
II.) all creatures are so in His hand, that without His will they cannot so much as move.4
The wicked plot against God’s people but the Psalmist says,
6They spread a net for my feet; my soul was despondent. They dug a pit before me, but they themselves have fallen into it!
Let us end though on a note about where our mind should go in light of God’s providence. If we believe in this kind of providence than we can be blistering in our championing God’s cause. We can speak the unvarnished truth not worrying about what man can do to us.
In the words of Rev. Joe Morecraft,
“And if a man believes that the overruling providence of God is operative in his life, he doesn’t care what man does to him. He will be courageous. No matter what the cost is to himself. So you see, when a man has these three components in his life, faith that God is present in his life. Faith that he is involved in a righteous cause, faith that the overruling providence of God is operative in his life, that person will do courageous things.”
God is personally concerned with your life. He is involved and His almighty and ever present power is right now upholding and governing your life. Your concerns are not strange to Him. He has not forgotten your trials but has introduced them in order to conform you increasingly to His lovely and resolute character.
Thank God now for the prosperity he has given to you by making you Biblical Christians who believe, unlike most other Christians, in God’s providence.
