Essentials of the Faith - Pt 11

The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the Lord. (Proverbs 16:33 ESV).

When I am finished with this topic you may be overwhelmed at the extent of God’s sovereignty. I certainly am. And we will face a choice: Will we turn from our objections and praise his power and grace, and bow with glad submission to the absolute sovereignty of God? Or will we stiffen our neck and resist him? Will we see in the sovereignty of God our only hope for life in our deadness, our only hope for answers to our prayers, our only hope for success in our service, our only hope for meaning in our suffering? Or will we insist that there is a better hope, or no hope? Those are the questions that will nip at our heels. Those are the questions we will face. I want to be very clear as I say that nothing you are about to read, as paradoxical as it may seem to our finite minds, contradicts the real moral responsibility that humans and angels and demons have to do what God commands. God has given us a will. How we use it makes our eternal difference. Tomorrow I will have an illustration of that concerning the birth of my oldest son, Kyle. Today, I want to introduce the direction we must travel. So, I want to divide God’s sovereignty into his governing natural events on the one hand and human events on the other. In the first case he is governing physical processes. And in the second case he is governing human choices. He is sovereign over what appears the most random acts in the world. Our reading today says, “The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the Lord.” In more contemporary language we would say, “The dice are rolled on the table and every play is decided by God.” There are no events so small that he does not rule for his purposes. “Are not two sparrows sold for a penny?” Jesus said, “And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. But even the hairs of your head are all numbered” (Matthew 10:29-30). Every seemingly chance event, every tiny bird that falls dead in the thousand forests, all of this is God’s command. God governs the natural world. Remember Jonah? God commands a fish to swallow him (1:17); God commands a plant to grow (4:6); and, commands a worm to kill it (4:7). And far above the life of worms the stars take their place and hold their place at God’s command (cf. Isaiah 40:26). All of it, all of nature is at the beck and call of God. So when Jesus finds himself in the middle of a raging storm, he merely speaks, “Peace! Be still!” And as the text says, “the wind ceased, and there was a great calm” (Mark 4:39). There is no wind, no storm, no hurricane, no cyclone, no typhoon, no monsoon, no tornado over which Jesus can say “Be still,” and it will not obey; which also means, that if it blows, he intends for it to blow. Do not fail to remember there is purpose in this. It is His purpose; and, it is designed and carried out for our good. It often doesn’t feel like that; but, His word, His promise is that it does! Trust that power and that word!