DUTIES FOR DIVINE PROVIDENCE

We come to our last sermon in this Charnock Conference. I trust that your heart has been encouraged at the power and might of our God, our Heavenly Father. In his Discourse on Divine Providence, Charnock follows his puritan method of offering up uses for the passage or doctrine of Scripture.

In this last sermon we see his use of exhortation. An exhortation is a form of communication that has a sense of urgency for someone to do something.

God’s providence, His remarkable, unstoppable, unimaginable providence, should move us to action. In the remainder of his discourse, Charnock offers ten uses, which I have altered slightly to provide us with 10 Commandments for Divine providence. These commandments will offer us a Ten-fold way of handling the doctrine of divine providence for the rest of our lives. The preamble to the Ten Commandments found in Exodus 20 also works in our present discussion. We hear these words from God who wields divine providence, “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of sin and Satan, out of the house of horrific bondage.” Therefore,

I. YOU SHALL NOT FEAR THE ENEMIES OF THE CHURCH

Charnock declares, “It is a wrong to God.” When we fear the enemies of the church we demonstrate little to no belief in the almighty God. “It is to value the power of grass above the power of the Creator, as though that had more ability to hurt than God to help.” Isaiah 51:12-13

Isaiah 51:12–13 ESV

“I, I am he who comforts you; who are you that you are afraid of man who dies, of the son of man who is made like grass, and have forgotten the Lord, your Maker, who stretched out the heavens and laid the foundations of the earth, and you fear continually all the day because of the wrath of the oppressor, when he sets himself to destroy? And where is the wrath of the oppressor?

You shall not fear the enemies of the Church because God reigns. “We vilefy God, and defile his glory, when our fear of man’s power stifles our faith in God,” writes Charnock.

In connection with this commandment, Charnock asks four questions that we would do well to consider in light of what we have heard.

A. Will you fear man, who have a God to secure you?

This is Christ’s Church, His beloved, the Church that he purchased with His own blood (Acts 20:28). Isaiah 43:1

Isaiah 43:1 ESV

But now thus says the Lord, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: “Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.

Charnock comforts us, “GOD WITH US, if well considered and believed, is sufficient to still those fears which have the greatest outward objects for their encouragement.” Will you fear man, who have a God to secure you?

B. Will you fear men, who have a God to watch over their motions?

Do we remember what we have read and heard? God reigns, He rules over all. There is nothing that the enemies of the church can do, even in secret. Charnock states, “Never fear man till the whole combined policies of hell can control the resolves of heaven, till God wants [or lacks] omniscience to dive into their secrets, skill to defeat their counsels, and an arm to abate their power.” Jesus tells us that He will build His Church and the gates of hell will not prevail (Matt. 16:18). Will you fear men, who have God to watch over their motions?

C. Will you fear men or devils, who have a God to restrain them?

The demons and Satan are always pictured as dogs on God’s leash. Job could only be touched with God’s permission. The demons begged Christ to send them to swine. “What should we feat those whose hearts are in God’s hands, whose enmity is under God’s restrain, who can change their fury into favour, or at least bridle it as he doth the waves of the sea?” asks Charnock.

D. Will you fear them who have a God to ruin them?

“They can no more resist God’s power than blustering winds or raging waves can cross his will.”

“What reason then to fear even multitudes, who can never be too strong for that God who gave them that little strength they have!”

Brothers and sisters, you shall not fear the enemies of the Church, for God reigns.

II. YOU SHALL NOT CENSURE GOD’S DARK PROVIDENCES

We see that God works all things out for the good of His Church in Romans 8:28-29.

Romans 8:28–29 ESV

And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.

When difficult times come, how do we respond? If God reigns, why did he let him die? If God is sovereign, why is the world in the state that it is in?

When we ask these questions, we doubt what Charnock calls dark providence. It is dark not in the sense of evil or wicked, but of darkness, of the lack of sight. Charnock reminds us of our finiteness,

“We are too short0sighted to apprehend and judge of God’s works; man cannot understand his own way, Prov. 20:24, much less the ways of an infinite God. God’s judgments are a great deep, Ps. 36:6; we may sooner fathom the deepest part in the sea, understand all the turnings of those subterranean passages, lave out the ocean with a spoon, or suck in, into our bellies, that great mass of waters, than understand the ways of God with our shallow brains.” How can we keep this commandment?

A. Therefore, first fix this in your minds, that God is righteous, wise, and good in everything.

Is this not what the Scriptures teach? And is this not what we believe? Yet, when God operates in His dark providences, those times when we cannot understand the way in which He has guided, we forget this truth. Therefore, fix it in your thoughts. Use the superglue, concrete, and steel available to you spiritually through the Word of God and at the hands of the Spirit of God, and fix it into your very being.

B. Distinguish between preparations to the main work and the perfection of the work, between the motions of God’s eyes and the discovery of his strength; his eyes move before his power.

We, like confused children, cry at the Creator because we think the present pain is meant for our harm. But, Charnock reminds us, “We judge not the husbandman [farmer] angry with his ground for tearing it with his plough, nor censure an artificer for hewing his stones or beating his iron, but expect patiently the issue of the design. Why should we not pay the same respect to God which we do to men in their arts, since we are less capable of being judges of his incomprehensible wisdom than of the skill of our fellow-creatures?” Trust in God, that His sovereignty has brought some pain into your lives to mold you into the image of Christ His Son.

C. Fix not your eye only upon the sensible operations of providence, but the ultimate end.

Charnock uses the word sensible in relation to the physical, or the observable, or the feelable aspects of God’s providence. The pain of the loss is what he has in mind here. Do not concentrate on the present, but on the end.

“God acts for ends at a great distance from us, which may not be completed till we are dead and rotten. How can we judge of that which respects a thing so remote from us, unless we view it in that relation? God’s aims in former providences were things to come, his aims in present providences are things to come.”

Brothers and sisters, you shall not censure God’s dark providences. Why? Because He is the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of sin and Satan, out of the house of horrific bondage.

III. YOU SHALL VIEW LIFE THROUGH THE LENS OF GOD’S PROVIDENCE

IV. YOU SHALL MEDITATE ON GOD’S PROVIDENCE

V. YOU SHALL BELIEVE GOD’S PROVIDENCE

VI. YOU SHALL PERSEVERE THROUGH GOD’S PROVIDENCE

VII. YOU SHALL PRAY THROUGH GOD’S PROVIDENCE

VIII. YOU SHALL PRAISE GOD FOR HIS PROVIDENCE

IX. YOU SHALL HAVE A PASSIONATE LOVE FOR THE CHURCH

X. YOU SHALL WORSHIP GOD IN SPIRIT AND TRUTH