Providence: The Final Word
God is God, and the comfort for the Christian begins there. God is one, and there are no other gods beside Him. All of His attributes are perfect; therefore, all the providential acts of God are perfect. When God decrees something to occur, it happens as it was ordained. As God works all things according to the counsel of His will, they fulfill God’s purpose for their existence. Nothing happens by luck, chance, or accident. No one and nothing can resist God.
All of history, including people and events in time are from God. He is the Author of His own story, and even as I write these words for you to read, He has planned my writing and your readership. On the scale of all that is transpiring, today, this is a small matter. The pure number of small matters adds to the profundity, however. It is perverse to say, “God is big.” It is better to shut one’s mouth and ponder the magnitude of incomprehensible providence.
Have you tried to consider infinity? You cannot grasp it. Have you meditated on eternity? It is unfathomable, as is our God. Therefore, we are mercifully constrained to attend to revelation. There is plenty to occupy those so compelled to search out what God has manifested to us. He has graciously made us to desire the knowledge of Himself. This desire is exclusive to those who have received His Spirit.
The natural man may be curious about mathematics, economics, politics, science, etc. but he has zero interest in God who created these disciplines of study and who moves them along for His purpose. Only theology considers the working together of all things by God. Only theology informs us regarding the end of these matters.
What we know is that the eternal God, in His sovereignty, has made all things to be as they are and to function as they should. A simple observation of just about everything and one discovers that it is all broken or dying. Is not God good? Yes, God is good. Is not God wise? Yes, God is all-wise. Is not God working? Yes, God is always working, but behold the fall of man and the fall of creation. This, too, is in His providence.
The fact is that every action and its various reactions is accounted by God, who is the prime mover, the first cause. In other words, God is doing it. We observe many secondary causes, but it is an error to ignore or deny the primary cause. Therefore, it is all from Him, through Him, and to Him (Rom 11:36). It, whatever “it” is, insists we acknowledge Him.
God made it. God works it. God’s end for all things will be achieved by all means ordained by God. God has a predetermined plan, and we are all witnesses to His execution of that plan. The Christian delights in providence. He looks for it as the invisible hand. He marvels that God would show His invisible handiwork, even as He has shown all people His visible handiwork. It all points us to Him. Whether we consider the creation of the physical universe or the movement of animate or inanimate things, our task, as the pinnacle of His creation, is to point people to Him that He may receive worship and glory. This task sets Christians apart from everyone else. We know, and therefore, we bear witness.
God has opened our ears to hear providence. God has opened our eyes to see providence. God opens one’s mouth to speak of providence. It is the Holy Spirit who causes us to hear, to see, to walk, and to speak to those to whom He sends us.
Do you believe in Jesus Christ, today? If yes, my dear reader, that was not your doing in any way. God sent His Spirit to you (Jn 14:28; 15:28), so that you would believe because long ago He appointed you to eternal life (Acts 13:48). God made your redemption sure by sending His Son. You trust Him because you know His love poured out in your heart (Rom 5:5). You hear the promises of God, and you melt with adoration. You are constrained to give Him thanks, always, for all things (2 Cor 5:14; 1 Thess 5:17).
Not everyone is with you in this life the Bible calls “new,” “abundant,” and “eternal.” Why the difference? In His story, God, who is called, “the Potter,” has prepared some vessels of wrath for destruction (Rom 9:22). His purpose in this is to show the magnitude of His mercy and grace toward you whom He has prepared for glory (Rom 9:23). He is perfectly just in doing both of these providential workings.
Believers praise God for His mercy, grace, love, justice, and wrath because all of these things are praiseworthy. Unbelievers dismiss all of these things because they have no capacity to spiritually appraise them (1 Cor 2:14). Unless God has mercy, the unbeliever will remain spiritually dead in his trespasses and sins (Eph 2:1). He is in the world without hope and without God (Eph 2:12).
As for me and my house, and hopefully yours, too, we will look, listen, live, and speak of God’s providential care and working of all things. We will also bear witness of His goodness and kindness to us who believe. He has made a covenant of grace, and He has brought us into that covenant by transferring us from the domain of darkness and into the kingdom of His beloved Son, our Lord, Jesus Christ (Col 1:13). All that He said He will do in every one of His covenant promises, we believe He will do because He has made us believe, by giving us His Spirit, who reveals all of this to us from God’s Word, the Bible, on which we stand for only one reason…His gracious providence.
David Norczyk
Spokane Valley, Washington
August 24, 2021
