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OVEREIGNTY, NOT CHANCE (1)A Meditation on Proverbs 16:33
To say that God is sovereign, is to say that He is the Lord and King in His universe, and that He “works out everything in conformity with the purpose of His will” (Eph. 1:11). God orders and directs every event, in order to fulfill His purposes, and to bring glory and honor to His name. And nothing – absolutely nothing – is outside of or beyond His sovereign control.The Heidelberg Catechism addresses the sovereignty of God in answer 27: “The Almighty and everywhere present power of God upholds heaven and earth with all creatures, and so governs them that herbs and grass (don’t overlook the minute details that God controls), rain and drought, fruitful and barren years, meat and drink, health and sickness, riches and poverty, yea all things come not by chance, but by His Fatherly hand.”
I know this is not an easy doctrine to fully embrace at first. It may take struggling and wrestling before we are ready to praise God for His sovereignty. Jonathan Edwards testified about his own struggle with this difficult doctrine: “From my childhood up, my mind had been full of objections against the doctrine of God’s sovereignty…It used to appear like a horrible doctrine to me…[But] there has been a wonderful alteration in my mind, in respect to the doctrine of God’s sovereignty…I have often since had not only a conviction but a delightful conviction. The doctrine has very often appeared exceeding pleasant, bright, and sweet. Absolute sovereignty is what I love to ascribe to God. But my first conviction was not so.”
Jesus took great delight in God’s sovereignty. We read in Luke 10:21-22: “In that same hour he rejoiced in the Holy Spirit and said, ‘I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows who the Son is except the Father, or who the Father is except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.” This is one of only two passages in the gospels where we’re told that Jesus is glad or rejoices. The other is John 11:14-15, where Jesus says, “Lazarus has died, and for your sake I am glad that I was not there, so that you may believe.” Putting the two passages together, it seems that nothing brings Jesus greater joy than the sovereign work of His Father that results in faith.
Why do we fail to understand such a basic doctrine? I submit to you that too often our thinking is more American than biblical, and more atheistic than Christian. What do we say when we narrowly miss getting into a terrible car accident by a few inches? “Wow, was I lucky!” Or, we attend a sports event with tens of thousands of people, and we run into a friend we haven’t seen for years, and think, “What a coincidence. What are the chances of that happening?” Such talk is completely foreign to the writers of sacred Scripture. Luck, coincidence or chance have no place in a universe governed and controlled by an omniscient, omnipotent, sovereign Lord.Proverbs 16:33 says, “The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the LORD.” Today we would say that God even con-trols the outcome of the dice that are rolled in Las Vegas. I love this verse, because it shows that nothing is too small or insignificant for God to control. This is important, especially when we realize that “small” things can have huge consequences. Some of you are familiar with the poem: For want of a nail the shoe was lost; for want of a shoe the horse was lost; for want of a horse the rider was lost; for want of a rider the battle was lost; for want of a battle the war was lost. World history can be altered because of one little seemingly insignificant nail.
R. C. Sproul said one of his childhood heroes, racecar driver Bill Vukovich, was killed in the Indianapolis 500 when he was going around a turn and his car lost control because a $.10 cotter pin broke.
In the Battle of Fort Duquesne during the French and Indian War a young lieutenant had five horses shot out from underneath him. At one point in the battle a bullet from an enemy rifle went though one side of his shirt and out the other as it was flapping behind him in the wind, missing his body by mere inches. That young lieutenant sur-vived that battle and became the first President of the United States of America. Was George Washington lucky? Or was a sovereign God controlling the flying bullets? If God is not in control of everything, including nails, cotter pins and flying bullets, our lives and this world are spinning out of control, and we are at the mercy of whimsical chance. If He is in control—and He is—then we can rejoice always.
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OVEREIGNTY, NOT CHANCE (2)A Meditation on Proverbs 16:33
Explanations of luck, coincidence or chance are how atheists view the “random” happenings of life in a closed universe without God. When we use their rhetoric, we downplay at best, or deny at worst, the loving, personal involvement of God in our daily lives. Is it any wonder that we don’t immediately thank God for the blessings that come our way, or petition Him in prayer the moment tragedy strikes, or ask for strength to resist temptation when we see it headed our way? If we go through our day with little or no thought of God and His involvement in our lives, we are “practical atheists.”
The inspired writers did not think in terms of luck, coincidence or chance. Even “natural” events are clearly ascribed to God. Yes, God has set the water cycles in motion, as well as the constellations in their seasons, but the writers prefer to say that God causes His sun to rise, and that He sends the rain (Matt. 5:45), as well as the lightning and the wind (Ps 135:7). In the Bible, women don’t just “get pregnant,” rather we read that the Lord opens and closes the womb (Gen. 29:31, 33; 30:1-2, 17, 19, 22). And, it is your heavenly Father who feeds the birds of the air and clothes the grass of the field (Matt. 6:26, 30).
“Now listen, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.’ …Instead, you ought to say, ‘If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.’ As it is, you boast and brag. All such boasting is evil” (James 4:13, 15-16). The point here is simple, yet profound: Don’t go through life acting as if God isn’t sovereignly in control or has no say in your daily decisions—again, this is how atheists live.
Since everything that happens to us is under God’s sovereign control, then all of life should be lived in response to Him. If troubles are from Him, then we petition Him. If blessings are from Him, then we thank Him (James 5:13-14). The sovereignty of God should cause us to live every single day with an acute awareness of His loving and personal involvement in every aspect of our lives. In a world of apparent chaos, it is comforting to know that what happens to us is not left to dumb luck, coincidence or chance, but to God’s sovereign will.
In fact, I know of no other doctrine that will provide believers with such a sure and solid foundation in the worst of times, including the death of a loved one, than the sovereignty of God. George Mueller found solace in this doctrine when his wife was dying. He prayed after he discovered that his wife had rheumatic fever: “Yes, my Father, the times of my darling wife are in Thy hands. Thou wilt do the very best thing for her, and for me, whether life or death. If it may be, raise up yet again my precious wife—Thou are able to do it, though she is so ill; but howsoever Thou dealst with me, only help me to continue to be perfectly satisfied with Thy holy will.”
It was not God’s will to raise her up again, but Mueller trusted in God’s sovereignty. He said, “I bow, I am satisfied with the will of my Heavenly Father, I seek by perfect submission to his holy will to glorify him, I kiss continually the hand that has afflicted me…Without an effort my inmost soul habitually joys in the joy of that loved departed one. Her happiness gives joy to me. My dear daughter and I would not have her back, were it possible to produce it by the turn of a hand. God himself has done it; we are satisfied with Him” (from the Autobiography of George Muller, quoted in John Piper, Taste and See, p. 267-268). Since God is sovereign, all that happens to us is His will. As a result, we can be certain that He has a good and wise purpose in all that comes our way (Rom. 8:28).
If there is one maverick molecule outside of God’s sovereign control then God’s purposes can be thwarted and “chance” rules the universe. But as Job testified confidently, “I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted” (Job 42:2). This should fill us with confidence. If God has a plan for my life—and He certainly does—then nobody and nothing can stop or side-track that plan. From the womb to the tomb, nothing happens by chance, but by sovereign decree. When we were in our mother’s womb God formed our inward parts and knitted us together as He saw fit for His purposes. And before we were even born and saw the light of day, God had already ordained the days of our lives (Ps. 139:13-16), as well as the time and place where we would live (Acts 17:26). Therefore, from one perspective, we are invincible and immortal until God’s work for us is done. Let’s live like it. God is on his sovereign throne, and He never ceases for a moment from working out everything in conformity with the purpose of His will (Eph. 1:11).
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OVEREIGNTY, NOT CHANCE (3)Harmonizing Divine Sovereignty and Human Responsibility
One of the first questions that may come to mind when you hear about the sovereignty of God is this: “If God is ordering and directing all events to work out everything in conformity with the purpose of His will (Eph. 1:11), then how can anyone be held responsible for their actions?” At first glance, divine sovereignty and human responsibility seem as incompatible as oil and water, and appear to defy logic. Therefore, our natural inclination is to cling to sovereignty and reject responsibility, or to cling to responsibility and reject sovereignty. This inclination is the result of finite, common sense, human reasoning, rather than submitting to the infinite wisdom of God’s Word, where both truths are clearly taught to co-exist in perfect harmony.
Let us recognize that we are dealing with an “antinomy” (an apparent contradiction between two otherwise reasonable principles or laws). An antinomy exists when two truths placed side by side seem incompatible with one another. “There are cogent reasons for believing each of them; each rests on clear and solid evidence; but it is a mystery to you how they can be squared with each other. You see that each must be true on its own, but you do not see how they can both be true together” (J. I. Packer, Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God, 18-19).
The Bible does not claim to tell us precisely how divine sovereignty and human responsibility can be mutually compatible, it only insists that they are. Theologians sometimes call this duality compatibilism, since God’s sovereignty and human responsibility are compatible. Without a doubt, we are dealing with mysterious and complex truths here, however, neither truth should be sacrificed for the sake of the other, nor should either truth be softened or watered down. Both are to be asserted and upheld in the most unqualified terms, as they are throughout the pages of Scripture.
The Bible is replete with compelling examples that show both truths co-existing harmoniously. The crucifixion of Christ provides an excellent illustration. Jesus told His disciples at the Last Supper, “The Son of Man will go as it has been decreed, but woe to that man who betrays him” (Lk. 22:22). In other words, the cross was part of the sovereign plan of God, while, at the same time, Judas will be held accountable for betraying Jesus. On the day of Pentecost, Peter said, “Men of Israel…This man (Jesus of Nazareth) was handed over to you by God’s set purpose and foreknowledge; and you with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross” (Acts 2:22-23; see also 4:24-28). Notice that Peter recognizes God’s sovereignty and man’s responsibility in the death of Christ. God had a purpose in the death of His Son, and wicked men also had a purpose in the death of His Son. Again, we concede that there is a great mystery operating here, but God’s sovereign purposes are interwoven with the evil purposes of men that they are responsible for. However, God’s purposes ultimately prevail, for this is what it means to be sovereign. As God Himself asserted, “I am God, and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning…My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose” (Isa. 46:9b-10).
Compatibilism is at the core of Romans 8:28, which is one of the most comforting verses in the Bible during times of tragedy: “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” Those who love God, and are called of God, can rest assured that He is working for their good “in all things.” Notin spite of all things, or after all things, but in all things. As with the crucifixion of Christ, God is at work in the evil events and tragedies of our life, in order to bring about His good will for us. This is almost unfathomable. It takes a firm faith in God’s Word to believe this.
Through out Joseph’s life, we find the phrase: “the LORD was with Joseph” (Gen. 39:2, 3, 21, 23). This simple phrase is meant to remind us that while it appears that men’s intentions are gaining the upper hand, God is right there with us – even when it seems that He has abandoned us – and His intentions are at work as well and are prevail-ing. In our finite minds it’s nearly impossible to comprehend two interwoven intentions operating simultaneously, but this is what the Bible teaches (Gen. 50:20) and what we must believe. Faith is required to see beyond the external circumstances of life into the mysterious ways of God where He remains sovereign and we remain responsible.
C. H. Spurgeon was once asked if he could reconcile divine sovereignty and human responsibility. “I wouldn’t try,” he replied; “I never reconcile friends.”
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