Introduction⤒🔗

In former days, professing Christians largely held to the biblical truth concerning the providence of God. It is true, people meant different things by it, and not all of it was accurate. Yet people would still espouse some idea of God controlling all events in the world, great and small, and working out His will through them.

Now, it appears that many, including some self-acclaimed evangelicals, have cast off this doctrine as baggage from a by-gone age. Recent theologians have advanced a teaching called "open theism." This erroneous and dangerous teaching sets aside the traditional doctrine of providence as we have it in the Reformed confessions on the basis of Scripture. Instead, it proposes a more dynamic, fluid, open-ended concept of God and His works.

Not only is this a problem among theologians, but many today openly challenge the idea that God governs all things. They appeal to advances in science or the many catastrophes in the world. Many prefer to think that God does not control all things. Instead, they portray Him as someone who feels for us in our suffering and pain, but is unable to help really us.

We, on the other hand, subscribe to the doctrine of God's providence. Yet, is it something we experience, and cherish? Or is it something that has few implications for how we live? Just as we need a personal and experiential knowledge of God's grace in our hearts and lives, so too, we need to study God's providence in our own lives. And we need, by God's grace, to learn to submit to, and love His providential dealings in our lives. We will be greatly helped and sup­ported if the doctrine of providence is something we know and experience by grace.

Many Christians of previous times had such an enriching acquaintance with the doctrine of providence. Samuel Rutherford, the famous 17^th century Scottish divine, was eminently exercised with this doctrine. His Letters are permeated with pearls on providence and well worth a read. Let me quote just one paragraph:

My dear brother, let God make of you what he will, he will end all with con­solation, and will make glory out of your sufferings; and would you wish better work? This water was in your way to heaven and written in your Lord's book: ye behoved to cross it, and therefore, kiss his wise and unerring Providence. Howbeit your faith seeth but the black side of Providence, yet it hath a better side, and God will let you see it. Learn to believe Christ better than his strokes; himself and his prom­ises better than his glooms. Dashes and disappointments are not canonical Scripture. "For we know that all things work together for good to them that love God." Hence I infer that losses, disappointments, ill-tongues, loss of friends, houses or country, are God's workmen, set on work to work out good to you, out of everything that befalleth you. Let not the Lord's deal­ing seem harsh, rough, or unfatherly because it is unpleasant. When the Lord's blessed will bloweth across your desires, it is best, in humility, to strike sail to him, and to be willing to be led any way our Lord pleaseth. It is a point of denial of yourself, to be as if you had not a will, but had made a free disposition of it to God, and had sold it over to him. And to make use of his will for your own is both true holiness, and your ease and peace. You know not what the Lord is working out of this, but you shall know it hereafter.

Rutherford's counsel to his friend betrays an intimate acquaintance with and deep admiration for the doctrine of God's providence. It would be enriching for believers to partake of the comfort the doctrine has to offer.

The Bible has surprisingly much to teach us about providence and how it should function in our lives. In the studies that follow we hope to focus on various postures which saints of both the Old and New Testament exhibited with respect to God's governance of all things.

Solomon Considering Providence←⤒🔗

• Read: Eccl 7:1-14
• Focus: Eccl 7:13-14

Of all the books of Scripture, Ecclesiastes is probably one of the most misunderstood. Some have said that its author was a skeptic, one who saw no rhyme or reason to all the events happening in the world. His frequent refrain, "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity" (see Eccl. 1:2, etc.) seems to confirm this.

We cannot here deal with the question of the specific style, intention, and message of the book. A good introductory book on Ecclesiastes is Sinclair Ferguson's, A Pundit's Folly (Banner of Truth — available through Reformation Heritage Books). Suffice it to say, Eccl. 7:13-14 sets forth not chance, but providence, not randomness, but God's governance: "Consider the work of God: for who can make that straight, which he hath made crooked? In the day of prosperity be joyful, but in the day of adversity consider: God also hath set the one over against the other, to the end that man should find nothing after him."

A Description of Providence←⤒🔗

Here Solomon calls us to consider providence as the work of God. We often distinguish the following works of God: His work in creation (His initial work); His providence (His continuing work), and redemption (His particular and saving work). In our passage Solomon refers to God's work in providence.

What do we understand by providence? It is helpful to consult what the Reformed confessions write about providence:

• Belgic Confession: "We believe that the same God, after He had created all things, did not forsake them, nor give them up to fortune or chance, but that He rules and governs them according to His holy will, so that nothing happens in the world with­out His appointment..." (Art. 13).
• Westminster Shorter Catechism: "God's works of providence are His most holy, wise, and powerful preserving and governing all His creatures, and all their actions" (Q & A 11).

Both these confessions stress God's preserving and governing. In preserving, God upholds what He has created so that it does not dissolve and cease to exist (Heb. 1:3). In governing, God reigns over, in, and through all things to work out His decree and purpose (see Ps. 29:10).

In our text Solomon also sets forth the majesty of providence. Providence is the work of God. It is not the work of unknown, impersonal forces. It is the work of God, who has revealed Himself in the Scriptures, who can be known, and who should be feared. When we observe providence, we are observing the work of God's hands. We cannot go a moment without being confronted with a thousand works of God, each a messenger from God, showing His great power, goodness, wisdom, and sovereignty.

Solomon also points to the mystery in providence: "Who can make that straight, which he hath made crooked?" (v. 14) Providence is not just a series of events that all fall in line with our plans, hopes, and desires. There are the many "cross-providences" or adversities, which seem to us "crooked" instead of "straight." Hurricanes, famines, accidents, birth-defects, unemployment, etc. Nevertheless, these things are as much a part of the "work of God" as "straight" things. This is the tremendous mystery of providence, which raises so many questions, also in the life of faith.

Our Duty with Respect to Providence←⤒🔗

Solomon does not stop at a description of providence. He presses home a duty for all of us with respect to providence. He writes: "Consider the work of God." This is a call to "study carefully," "to inspect," and "to trace" the hand of God in providence. I wonder whether we take time for this? Parents love to look at the works of art their young children bring home from school. Children, in turn, are fascinated with what their parents do. They sometimes ask if they can come to our places of employment and watch us do our work. Should not God's children delight to search and trace God's works, including those in providence? Often, we are so busy watching the actions of politicians or other people in the limelight. When is the last time we carefully studied the work of God?

In addition to this general duty, we have two specific duties. First of all, there is the duty of joy. When God in His providence brings us prosperity, we are to be joyful (v. 14). Now this may seem to be fairly common-place. When things go well, we are more pleased than when they don't. Yet, how joyful are we? How many hundreds of providences remain unacknowledged each day?

It would be good to ask what true joy really is. We tend to think of it as that natural feeling of delight that fluctuates based on external circumstances. In the Bible, however, "joy" is part of the fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22). Wilhelmus à Brakel has a very apt definition of joy. He calls it the "delightful motion of the soul, generated by the Holy Spirit in the heart of believers, whereby He convinces them of the felicity of their state, causes them to enjoy the benefits of the covenant of grace, and assures them of their future felicity." Through Christ, our response to prosperity should be this kind of spiritual joy. It should lead us to worship God heartily for all His undeserved mercies. Robert Buchanan writes: "We should turn every blessing we receive, whether temporal or spiritual, into a fresh argument for stirring up our souls and all that is within us, to praise and magnify the great name of our God."

The second specific duty with respect to providence is reflection. In times of adversity, Solomon calls us to "consider." This is a call to thoughtful sobriety. We should not focus on secondary causes, but look rather to God. Affliction is His work. It serves His purpose, however mysterious this might seem.

When we encounter adversity, it is difficult to "consider." Our thoughts twirl; our hearts sink; our spirits reel to and fro. But Solomon counsels us: "Consider." This involves prayerful reflection on God, His character, His purpose, His promise and providence in this light.

Solomon's counsel covers all circumstances. All of life is a mixture of adversity and prosperity. Consequently, the life of a Christian will be a mixture of joy and thoughtfulness. Show me a man who is truly joyful in pros­perity and thoughtful in adversity, and I will show you a man who considers the providence of God.

The Direction Inherent in Providence←⤒🔗

There is a lesson in the fact that God fills our lives with both prosperity and adversity. If life were only prosperity, we would be content with this world. If life were only adversity, we might completely despair, as Job almost did.

Solomon explains the lesson: "God also hath set the one (prosperity) over against the other (adversity), in order that man should find nothing after him." What Solomon is saying is this: God mixes prosperity and adversity in our lives in order that we would not rest content with this life, or try to lay up treasures on earth. Instead, we ought to trace everything back to God and learn to rest in Him. Instead of seeking significance "after him" — e.g., in a legacy of one kind or other — a person should learn to seek it "above him." As someone once wrote: God has "wisely intermingled sorrows and joys; It is by the tempering of the one with the other that a state of things is produced, the most favourable to the sanctification of the soul, and to the growth and development of the moral and spiritual nature of man." If providence followed a straight line, we might never rise above the horizontal. But when providence follows a crooked line, it beckons God's child to look upwards.

We have a book of providence unfolding around us. Do we study it? Do we see everything around us and in us through the glasses of the works of God? Solomon calls us to be students in the school of God's providence ... in order that we would find nothing after us, but everything above us, with God.

Questions:←⤒🔗

1. What is the difference between God's preserving power and God's governing power? Why should we be thankful for both?
2. Reflect on the majesty and mystery of providence. Why do these two go hand in hand?
3. Solomon calls us to rejoice in prosperity. What are natural reactions to prosperity? Can you think of people in the Bible who exhibited this biblical kind of joy?
4. What are ways we should cultivate a thoughtful spirit in affliction?
5. What effect does God intend the mixture of prosperity and adversity to have in our lives? How does Solomon make this point?
6. There is no tuition in the school of providence. Why do so many fail to enroll? What are some practical ways we can be better students?