What If Everything Is as It Should Be?
In the beginning…God. Before the beginning…God. In the midst…God. At the end…God. Forever…God.
He is the Creator of all things, and He has made them to be for His own purposes. Not only does He preserve all things according to His own will, but God directs all things toward His own ends.
Nothing happens apart from Him because He is the first cause of everything. In the appearance of secondary causes, God has already been at work. He is accomplishing His will to perfection, for it is His story that we observe and in which we participate. His will must be done, and nothing has ever thwarted God’s will because He is sovereign, and in God’s sovereignty, He is all-powerful.
God operates knowing all things because He is ever-present everywhere. For this reason, His judgments are righteous. He is a just Judge in matters of heaven and earth. God reigns and His kingdom rules in the affairs of inanimate creation, animals, and the sons of men.
God is holy, and He reacts to nothing and no one in situations He has not caused because He is the prime mover in them all. Therefore, demons and evil men are merely working God’s will in the confines of His providence.
If these statements I have proposed are true, according to the revelation of God, then we must consider the proposition that everything is as it should be. This will not resonate well with sinful people because of their own sins and the sins of others. Sin has consequences and sinners do not escape suffering in some measure and variance. It is common for sinners to blame God for the conditions and circumstances endured in this fallen world.
The wicked grumble and murmur against the Almighty for their plight. The Christian is mindful of providence to some degree. We must admit that this doctrine of God’s sovereign working of everything is not widely known among believers. Even the dissemination of the knowledge of God’s providence is a working of God’s providence. Therefore, my dear reader, let us together give thanks for our meditation on this subject, today. Without providence you and I would be occupied with something else.
It is God’s grace to us that we grow in the knowledge of the truth that is in Christ Jesus (Jn 1:17; Eph 4:21; 2 Pet 3:18). Only if God opens our minds to understand the Scriptures will we understand the Scriptures. The Spirit of truth is our Teacher, but the Spirit teaches Christians in community. We learn Christ, together.
In learning Christ, we learn of God the Father, from the Spirit, who shows us Christ. Thus, in learning theology, we learn the attributes of God, which were perfectly displayed in Jesus Christ. Hence, we learn of the Persons of the Trinitarian Godhead. They work, and in observing all that takes place, we are witnesses to providence.
One may protest, seeing good and evil in the world. Protesters rarely see themselves as participants in evil. Ultimately, who are they objecting to? The answer is God and His providence. Some, of course, will protest that they are protesting against God, but in doing so they help prove the point.
God’s eternal will is decreed and will surely come to pass. What has been willed, decreed, and revealed to us by God, helps us interpret God’s working in providence. In other words, we see events happen all day every day. At the same time, the Spirit-filled believer is meditating on God’s Word, day and night. He or she is judging according to God’s standards (no Christian would ever claim to be perfectly righteous in their discernment), but one thing invariably proves true…God’s Word is always right!
This is the Christian’s spur to pray that God would grant him the desire to open God’s Word and feast on it for the welfare of His soul. Everything else is a cheap imitation for coping with suffering caused by sin. The problem with cheap imitation coping devices is that they are racked with addictive elements.
The allure of the Bible is that it is good for your soul and for your body. For you to know the truth is what sets you free from imposters and their fake elixirs. The flesh is at war with the Spirit, but this is in the realm of providence, too. The flesh will soon be devoured by sin, just as God and His infallible Word has said (Rom 6:23). Salvation is entirely at God’s discretion, as revealed in His Word and manifest in His providence (Ps 3:8; Jon 2:9; Rev 19:1).
God does not save the wicked, for the wicked do not trust in Jesus Christ. They do not have faith in God because faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of Christ (Rom 10:17). The unrighteous have no love for God (Jn 5:42), only hatred (Jn 7:7; Rom 1:30), because they have no room in their hearts for God’s Word (Jn 8:47). God’s Word is true and the truth (Jn 1:1; 14:6; 17:17), but men love darkness because their deeds are evil. They simply will not come to the Light unless God the Father irresistibly draws them (Jn 6:44, 65).
It is only by God’s will being worked by God’s Spirit that one is saved and another one is not (Jn 1:12–13; 3:1–8). If anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him (Rom 8:9). Those who do not belong to Christ do not believe in Him (Jn 10:26). It is God the Father and God the Son who send the Spirit to baptize the elect redeemed people of God (Mt 3:11; Jn 14:26; 15:26; Acts 2:38; 10:44, 45, 47). In this, the Spirit goes where God wills (Jn 3:1–8).
Who would protest God’s sovereignty in salvation? Who would introduce another gospel that introduces man’s sovereignty in salvation by means of mythical free will? Is God disturbed by the charlatan false teachers in Christ’s church, who preach social justice, prosperity theology, free will decisionalism and easy believism? The devil infiltrates Christ’s church, but God is working all things together for good for His chosen, reconciled, regenerate people (Rom 8:28), to sustain them in the faith handed down to all the saints by God’s grace (Jude 1:3).
God’s grace is for His own people, whom He loved in eternity (Eph 1:4–5) at the cross and demonstrated by His pouring out His love in our hearts (Rom 5:5), manifested by His indwelling Spirit (Jn 14:17; Rom 8:9, 11). This is God’s providence for those who are His (2 Tim 2:19), and who were given to Christ (Jn 6:37), and for whom He came to save (Mt 1:21).
Those who were prepared for wrath and destruction (Rom 9:22), by the eternal will of God are participants in providence but not grace. They receive providential care, such as sun, rain, food, clothing, shelter, but even those good things granted by God are cursed for the wicked, who do not give thanks to God (Rom 1:21). At times and for demonstration purposes, God lavishes material abundance on the wicked to their further hurt (consider the plight of Hollywood stars, Washington despots, and lottery winners).
Without grace, God’s providence is a judgment and wrath being executed daily on sinful rebels. They are being fattened for the day of slaughter, doing the very thing that stores up God’s wrath for the day of wrath (Rom 2:5). Unbelievers are oblivious to these matters, for it is impossible for them to believe our report, “For this cause they could not believe for Isaiah said, again, ‘He has blinded their eyes, and He hardened their hearts lest they see with their eyes, and perceive with their heart, and be converted and I heal them (Jn 12:40).”
In summary, we see God at work, and this is His providence manifesting in what we term, “history.” He is now at work preserving all creation. He is directing everything animate and inanimate toward His end goal objective. This includes the line of the righteous and the unrighteous, which were determined in eternity past by God’s eternal good pleasure and eternal will.
In conclusion, it is imperative for you, dear reader, to examine your response and attitude toward these matters pertaining to the doctrine of God’s providence. Are you in agreement or do you protest? If you are in protest against God sovereignly working all things in His story, then you may wish to inquire of Him as to whether He is indeed the author and perfecter of your faith (Heb 1:3). The reason is that everything is as it should be…or it is not. If it is not, then God has been judged by you to be deficient in some way. He is not, and this is what Christians believe.
David Norczyk
Spokane Valley, Washington
June 19, 2021
