A Study of the Doctrine of Providence Pt 2 Who Is In Charge?
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Who Is In Charge?
Who Is In Charge?
What answers might people give to the question, “Who is in charge?”
Pure chance (Karma)
Cosmic Contest
Divine Control
What does the Bible say?
What is Sovereignty?
What is Sovereignty?
“The doctrine of God’s providence is rooted in the doctrine of God’s sovereignty”
soveREIGNty- God’s undisputed authority and rule over every aspect of His creation.
14 Is anything too hard for the Lord? At the appointed time I will return to you, about this time next year, and Sarah shall have a son.”
Lit. “Is any thing [any word] too wonderful for the LORD [to perform]?”
1. God Can do Anything
1. God Can do Anything
11 Then the Lord said to him, “Who has made man’s mouth? Who makes him mute, or deaf, or seeing, or blind? Is it not I, the Lord?
What is the context of this statement?
Moses’ excuses:
Who am I? (3:11)
What authority do I have? (3:13)
What if they won’t believe me (4:1)
I am rhetorically ungifted and thus unqualified (4:10)
What does this passage explicitly teach about God’s sovereignty?
What is shocking about this verse?
“According to God, disabilities are not accidents that occur because God momentarily loses control or is suddenly taken by surprise. The mute, the dead, the blind, the disabled are fashioned that way by the omnipotent hand of an all-wise—and always good—God for His ultimate glory.”
2. God Makes Everyone
2. God Makes Everyone
23 And the Lord said to Moses, “Is the Lord’s hand shortened? Now you shall see whether my word will come true for you or not.”
What is the context of this statement? Someone recreate the historical scene for our minds this morning.
21 But Moses said, “The people among whom I am number six hundred thousand on foot, and you have said, ‘I will give them meat, that they may eat a whole month!’
22 Shall flocks and herds be slaughtered for them, and be enough for them? Or shall all the fish of the sea be gathered together for them, and be enough for them?”
Is the Lord’s hand shortened? What does that mean?
It is an idiom referring to one’s word overreaching his ability, promising more than one can deliver.
Notice God comes back to His Word. Can God deliver on His promises?
Does this statement by God have a timeless application for us today? What other promises, what other words of God, might we be tempted to call into question just like Moses?
Did God keep his word to Moses and to the people of Israel?
31 A wind sent by the Lord came up and blew quail in from the sea; it dropped them at the camp all around, three feet off the ground, about a day’s journey in every direction.
32 And the people rose all that day and all night and all the next day, and gathered the quail. Those who gathered least gathered ten homers. And they spread them out for themselves all around the camp.
about 1900 birds, weighing about 475 pounds
3. God Can Do Everything He Says
3. God Can Do Everything He Says
39 “ ‘See now that I, even I, am he, and there is no god beside me; I kill and I make alive; I wound and I heal; and there is none that can deliver out of my hand.
This verse depicts the LORD as sovereign of life and death and of harm and health.
4. God Rules All Existence
4. God Rules All Existence
6 The Lord kills and brings to life; he brings down to Sheol and raises up.
7 The Lord makes poor and makes rich; he brings low and he exalts.
Context? Hannah’s prayer
How does Hannah’s prayer expand the teaching from Deut 32:39?
10 But he said to her, “You speak as one of the foolish women would speak. Shall we receive good from God, and shall we not receive evil?” In all this Job did not sin with his lips.
Context?
What does Job say about God?
What does Job mean by receiving both good and evil from God?
Does God ever initiate sin or originate moral evil?
Evil- not always morally evil- sometimes bad in a nonmoral sense (bad figs, contaminated water, calamitous storm)
“Should we expect only good things from God all the time? Should we no also expect (what we consider) ‘bad’ things (such as hardship or adversity, loss or illness) from time to time?”
Who then, according to Job is the author of the “good” we enjoy as well as the “bad” we must sometime suffer? Who des he says sends both? Was Job mistaken?
2 “I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted.
What is job affirming true about God is this verse?
Job is not affirming God’s power; he was affirming God’s freedom to do as He pleases without any obligation to explain Himself to us (the idea is “I understand now that You can do anything you want”).
20 Our God is a God of salvation, and to God, the Lord, belong deliverances from death.
20 God is to us a God of deliverances; And to God the Lord belong escapes from death.
Who is writing this psalm? David
How many times did David experience God-given deliverances from danger and escapes from death through a variety of providential means?
5. God Rules All Circumstances
5. God Rules All Circumstances
19 The Lord has established his throne in the heavens, and his kingdom rules over all.
What exceptions are there to the rule of God? Are there any zones outside of His dominion?
3 Our God is in the heavens; he does all that he pleases.
Are there any obstacles that prevent God from doing anything He wishes?
What response might people have to such a being?
What is the response of the child of God to such truth?
6 Whatever the Lord pleases, he does, in heaven and on earth, in the seas and all deeps.
7 He it is who makes the clouds rise at the end of the earth, who makes lightnings for the rain and brings forth the wind from his storehouses.
8 fire and hail, snow and mist, stormy wind fulfilling his word!
15 He sends out his command to the earth; his word runs swiftly.
16 He gives snow like wool; he scatters frost like ashes.
17 He hurls down his crystals of ice like crumbs; who can stand before his cold?
18 He sends out his word, and melts them; he makes his wind blow and the waters flow.
Do these verses have any practical relevance for our attitude toward the weather?
6. God Does All He Pleases
6. God Does All He Pleases
13 Consider the work of God: who can make straight what he has made crooked?
What does this verse teach about God’s sovereignty?
Who can undo what God does, or unsend what God sends?
What can alter the shapes of things and events that come to us from God?
14 In the day of prosperity be joyful, and in the day of adversity consider: God has made the one as well as the other, so that man may not find out anything that will be after him.
What two kinds of experiences does God appoint?
And what should be our respective reaction to each when we experience it?
27 For the Lord of hosts has purposed, and who will annul it? His hand is stretched out, and who will turn it back?
Who is the specific object of this challenge in the context? Assyria—the dominant world power at the time.
Who, then, is a match for God’s power, or who can annul what God purposes?
5 I am the Lord, and there is no other, besides me there is no God; I equip you, though you do not know me,
6 that people may know, from the rising of the sun and from the west, that there is none besides me; I am the Lord, and there is no other.
7 I form light and create darkness; I make well-being and create calamity; I am the Lord, who does all these things.
9 remember the former things of old; for I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me,
10 declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose,’
11 calling a bird of prey from the east, the man of my counsel from a far country. I have spoken, and I will bring it to pass; I have purposed, and I will do it.
17 ‘Ah, Lord God! It is you who have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and by your outstretched arm! Nothing is too hard for you.
27 “Behold, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh. Is anything too hard for me?
37 Who has spoken and it came to pass, unless the Lord has commanded it?
38 Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that good and bad come?
35 all the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing, and he does according to his will among the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth; and none can stay his hand or say to him, “What have you done?”
7. God’s Rule is Unrivaled
7. God’s Rule is Unrivaled
6 Is a trumpet blown in a city, and the people are not afraid? Does disaster come to a city, unless the Lord has done it?
Does COVID comes to a city, unless the Lord had done (i.e. sent, permitted) it?
If God is all-knowing and all powerful, could He have averted it? Certainly, yet He permitted it. Why? We are not ready to answer that question yet. First our duty is to bow to the unambiguous and repeated declarations of Scripture; only then will our spirits be properly adjusted to grapple with the question of why.
8. God’s Rule is Unquestionable
8. God’s Rule is Unquestionable
What if It’s Not God?
What if It’s Not God?
If God’s providence does not extend over all the circumstances and changes of life—both good and bad—then what explanations does that leave to us? What are the alternatives?
We can conclude that we are essentially at the mercy of blind fate.
If we wish to deny that God exercises sovereign control over the “bad” things that happen then-
We must admit that some things take even God by surprise
We must admit that some things God is unable to avert
Someone else is actually in charge— the cherished dream of the Devil and the nightmare of mankind.
If there is anything He does not know, if there is anything He is impotent to do or to prevent, then He cannot be sovereign.
“And if God’s sovereignty is limited, then His trustworthiness is also limited.”
Do you agree? Why? Why Not?
If God is not truly sovereign, God cannot be truly trusted.