related to the news that we've heard only last week with regard to what happened in that elementary school in Connecticut. And not only that, but even to the most casual observer, as I'm sure you'll agree, the times we are living in today are among the most chaotic in the history of the world. I think that's an undeniable statement. I think at unprecedented levels, we're seeing more and more these rumors of war, these things that are seeking to overturn our social mores, and the way we have all been brought up to view certain things. I'm thinking of the sexual promiscuity that's so rampant in our culture. Everything is over-sexualized. I'm talking about a debt that's out of control. I'm talking about corruption in Washington at every level. where statesmanship is something that has long since gone by the wayside. We don't have statesmen anymore, we have pure politicians and as you know that cannot be a good thing. All the discussion about gun control and so on and so forth. Pastors who are being accused of some of the most heinous sins against God and their fellow man. people occupying pulpits that have no sense occupying the pulpits. I read only yesterday where there's a Bible being published. I think it's out on the shelves now that's geared toward the homosexual community, where they take all of the passages that speak against homosexuality and they actually translate those in a way that's more friendly to the homosexual community, calling that which is sin, not sin, and so on and so forth. And again, the capstone, at least in my mind, was this shooting that took place in Connecticut where 26 individuals lost their lives, 20 of those were children ages 6 and 7. You know, the world's supposed to end on Friday, according to the Mayan calendar and the pessimistic prognosticators. I'm kind of hoping it does. Right? I mean, come quickly, Lord Jesus. We're living in a world that, in my opinion, cannot wait much longer before the Lord comes back to set this right. Now, I wish He would do that through revival, and He may very well yet do that through revival and spare us all the end-of-the-world scenario. Revival would be another great thing, and the Lord could certainly do that. But as believers, I want to encourage you tonight to remember that God is exactly where He was since the beginning of time. I've had people even come up to me this past week and ask me, you know, where was God in all of this? And why did God not stop? the madness? Why does God allow these sorts of things to happen? And again, the answer is, God is exactly where He has always been, and He's ruling, not according to the dictates of our personal whims, our personal beliefs, our wishes and our desires, but God is ruling in accordance with what? His will. His sovereign will and good pleasure alone. So to that end, I thought it would be a good time tonight to remind ourselves of a doctrine that we speak a lot of, but I really don't think many people have that firm a grasp on. That's the doctrine of God's providence. the doctrine of God's providence. Let me give you a good textbook definition of providence from W.B. Pope's Compendium of Christian Theology. He writes this, he says, Providence is the most comprehensive term in the language of theology. It is the background of all the several departments of religious truth, a background mysterious in its co-mingled brightness and darkness. It penetrates and fills the whole compass of the relations of man with his Maker. It connects the unseen God with the visible creation, and the visible creation with the work of redemption, and redemption with personal salvation, and personal salvation with the end of all things. It carries our thoughts back to the supreme purpose, which was in the beginning with God, and forward to the foreseen end and consummation of all things, while it includes between these the whole infinite variety of the dealings of God with man." That's a pretty comprehensive definition. In other words, the doctrine of God's providence covers who God is and how He has dealt with His creation, namely humankind, from the beginning all the way through the end. And this includes both light and dark providences. You know, we live in a world today where we want to give God credit for the light providences, but we want to blame the devil for the dark providences. That is a woefully unbalanced theology. And it will get you in a lot of trouble if you continue down the rabbit trails that spring off of that sort of thinking, that line of thinking. Again, in short, the doctrine of providence concerns everything God does in the realm of mankind to bring about His purpose. His purpose. And for the true believer, Should this cause despondency or praise? Praise. We praise the Lord for His providence, both dark and light, knowing that everything we go through No matter how painful, no matter how enjoyable, no matter how trying or how easy, no matter how inconvenient the thing is or how accommodating the thing is, everything that happens to us as believers happens for our good and most importantly for what reason? God's glory. God gets glory out of everything He does. Everything He does, not just the good things. As I've said before, it was the knowledge of this doctrine that preserved the one man in the history of mankind who suffered more than anyone has ever suffered or perhaps ever will suffer. I'm talking about a man named Job. Turn to Job 18. I want for us to read this together. I want to gain a more precise understanding of what was going on in Job's life, so we can see this doctrine of God's providence and how it was able to actually preserve him. Job 18. Here in chapter 18, in case you're not as brushed up on your Job studies as you should be, Job's friend, Bildad, the Shuite, is recounting what had happened to Job. Beginning in verse 12 of chapter 18, he says this. Now, and I want you to put yourself in this position as well. Just try to, you know, I'm not asking you to play mind games or anything, but just try to empathize with this long list of things that had afflicted Job. Bildad says his strength is famished. And calamity is ready at his side. His skin is devoured by disease. The firstborn of death devours his limbs. He is torn from the security of his tent, and they march him before the king of terrors. There dwells in his tent nothing of his. Brimstone is scattered on his habitation. His roots are dried below, and his branches cut off above. Memory of him perishes from the earth, and he has no name abroad. He is driven from light into darkness and chased from the inhabited world. He has no offspring or posterity among his people, nor any survivor where he sojourned. Those in the West are appalled at his fate, and those in the East are seized with horror. Surely such are the dwellings of the wicked, and this is the place of him who does not know God." You see, Bildad had a faulty theology as well. Bildad misconstrued these dark providences that had befallen Job and said, look, this is proof that Job does not know God. Now on to the next chapter. Job responded to Bildad. He said, How long will you torment me and crush me with these words? These ten times you have insulted me. You are not ashamed to wrong me. Even if I have truly erred, my error lodges with me. If indeed you vaunt yourselves against me and prove my disgrace to me, know then that God has wronged me, and has closed His net around me. Behold, I cry violence, but I get no answer. I shout for help, but there is no justice. He has walled up my way so that I cannot pass, and He has put darkness on my paths. He has stripped my honor from me and removed the crown from my head. He breaks me down on every side, and I am gone. And He has uprooted my hope like a tree. He has also kindled His anger against me and considered me as His enemy. His troops come together and build up their way against me and camp around my tent. He has removed my brothers far from me, and my acquaintances are completely estranged from me. My relatives have failed, and my intimate friends have forgotten me. Those who live in my house and my maids consider me a stranger. I am a foreigner in their sight. I call to my servant, but he does not answer. I have to implore him with my mouth. My breath is offensive to my wife, and I am loathsome to my own brothers. Even young children despise me. I rise up and they speak against me. All my associates abhor me, and those I love have turned against me. My bone clings to my skin and my flesh, and I have escaped only by the skin of my teeth." If you ever wondered where that phrase came from. Pity me, pity me, O you my friends, for the hand of God has struck me. Why do you persecute me as God does and are not satisfied with my flesh? O that my words were written, O that they were inscribed in a book, they were, Job, that with an iron stylus and lead they were engraved in the rock forever. That sounds like Job, man. He's at the end of his rope. I mean, who wouldn't be, right? After all that has happened. I mean, we're told elsewhere that Job really was more accustomed during these days to sitting on the ash heap that used to be all of his belongings. He had boils from the top of his head all the way to the soles of his feet. And he would grab these little broken pieces of pottery and literally scrape at these boils to relieve the itching. Can you imagine? How many of you ever had a boil? They hurt, don't they? I mean, just to the slightest touch, they're so tender. Can you imagine being covered in them from the top of your head to the bottom of your feet? Job's done. But what was his response to all this? What did his own wife advise that he do? Just curse God and die. Just get it over with. He must have been a sight to behold. But his knowledge of who God was and what He was doing, what He was actually doing, led him to understand the most important truth of all, that whatever God ordains is right. What? What do you mean? Look at what we just read. That was right? Let me repeat that. God ordains is right. Job understood that. Look what he says next. As for me, I know that my Redeemer lives. And at the last he will take his stand on the earth, even after my skin is destroyed, yet from my flesh I shall see God, whom I myself shall behold, and whom my eyes will see, and not another. My heart faints within me." And later he would go on to say, though he slay me, yet will I trust in him. Folks, Job had a complete and thorough understanding of the providence of God, both dark and light. He had been one of the richest men the world had ever seen. Now he sat as a pauper on the ashes of his own, the remnant of his own possession, scraping boils on his body. And all through it, all the while, Job could say, I will yet trust in Him. I don't know about you, but I would have checked out long before that, I'm afraid. Compare this to our problems today, and you'll see just how petty some of them are. I'm not saying all of them are petty. We do have real problems today, but it's something to consider nonetheless. It was this same knowledge of God's providence that really emboldened Peter to say what he did in his Pentecost sermon. Look at Acts chapter 2. Acts chapter 2. Verses 22 and 23. You want one little tidbit of text that speaks to the fact that God's Word is inspired? Nothing but one, or no one but He who is inspired by the Holy Spirit to write this or to say this would actually say this. Right? Acts 2, 22 and 23. Men of Israel, listen to these words. Jesus the Nazarene, a man attested to you by God with miracles and wonders and signs, which God performed through him in your midst, just as you yourselves know, this man, delivered over by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, you nailed to a cross by the hands of godless men and put him to death. Peter understood that even the most heinous crime ever committed on planet earth, the putting to death of the Lamb of God, the spotless, sinless Lamb of God, was orchestrated and ordained for what end? Huh? For God's glory. God ordained it. It was His plan. In Acts 4, 23-28. Another passage that. speaks to the same issue. Peter and John just are appearing before the high priest, where they're instructed to no longer speak about Christ. And what do we read? When they'd been released, they went to their own companions and reported all the chief priests and elders had said to them. And when they heard this, they lifted their voices to God with one accord and said, oh Lord, it is you who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and all that is in them, who by the Holy Spirit through the mouth of our father David, your servant said, why did the Gentiles rage and the peoples devise futile things? The kings of the earth took their stand, and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord and against His Christ. For truly in this city they were gathered together against Your holy servant Jesus, whom You anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, to do whatever Your hand and Your purpose predestined to occur." Was the death of Christ a dark providence? Indeed, probably the darkest of all providences. And yet what did that do for us? You see the concept how the darkest of providences can be turned into the greatest of blessings, the lightest of providences? What better providence have you received in your life, if you're a believer, if you're a child of God, what greater providence has been bestowed upon you than your salvation? There is none. There is none. Now how did it come about? Through the darkest of providences. You know, speaking of Pontius Pilate, one of my favorite passages is that John 19 passage, where Jesus appears before Pontius Pilate, and Pontius Pilate says, you better start talking to me. What did he say? He said, do you not know that I have the power to have you put to death? And what's Jesus reminding? Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. You would have no power over me if it had not been granted to you by my Father. Folks, I don't know about you, that's powerful. That is powerful. It put Pontius Pilate in his rightful place. It proves categorically that, combined with the Acts passages we just read, it proves categorically that while man is responsible for putting Christ to death, yes, man is responsible. Your sin and mine is what necessitated the death of the Holy One of Israel. But, it was all within the confines of what? God's perfect will. God's perfect will. Well, everything works in accordance with God's divine purpose. But there are still those who ask, why? Why? Why does evil Why can we say that that is something that God has in His divine plan? Now let me say this, is God the author of evil? No, God does know evil. God can't be in the presence of evil in the sense that He is enticed to do those things. God is impeccable in all of His ways. He cannot do that which is evil. Why? Because that would go contrary to what His character is. And which is what? He's holy. He's separate and distinct. He's not subject to evil deeds as we are subject to evil deeds. But let me ask you this, when bad things happen, why do they happen? Think about this, when this thing happened in Connecticut, I heard people say things in my workplace like, well, you know, God didn't intend for this to happen. That's where, you know, you put your dog face on, you're like, God didn't intend for this to happen. And others said, well, God may have allowed this to happen, but He didn't ordain it. Really? How do we come to grips with that? How do you answer that? Is that good theology? God didn't intend for something to happen. If God didn't intend for something to happen, then how does it happen? Work with me. Work through this with me. If God doesn't intend for something to happen, how does it happen and what does that say about God? It happens by random chance, which means what about God? He's not God. Because something happened that caught him by surprise. Right? Would everyone agree with that? I mean the threats to God's person are enormous if we say innocent sounding things like, well God didn't intend for that to happen. Because if God didn't intend for it to happen and it happened, that means God cannot be God because there was something that God could have prevented but He didn't prevent. If God didn't step in and prevent it, then what does it mean? He has no control to step in and prevent it. What's that? He's not omnipotent. He's not omniscient. Right? Because if he'd been omniscient, knowing everything, then he would have stepped in, right? Why? Because I would have stepped in. What's the faulty theology there, though? Right? That's what I'm portraying. I'm no better than God. Oh, but Pastor Tim, it's so horrible! This is going to sound horrible in and of itself. But to whom is it horrible? to us, right? Why? Because our estimation of things is built around the way we have been taught, the way we have been in our fallen condition. We've kept a lot of that. And we believe that we do know better than God. And we believe that if we were God, we would not allow those things to happen. But guess what? We're not God. Our mind is not infinite. And we don't understand why God does everything He does. But you can be rest assured, He does it. Because if there's anything that happens that God Himself didn't ordain, what does question 7 of the Westminster Larger Catechism say in response to the question of God's providence? Right. And whatsoever God ordains, or whatsoever comes to pass, only comes to pass through the sovereign ordination of God. Folks, we've got to wrap our brains around that. Now how is that a solace for our soul? How do we reconcile that in our minds and say, okay, okay, God ordains these things, but I'm not okay with that. How do you get okay with that? Jennifer, bing, bing, she gets a gold star. Somebody give her a gold star. Because He's sovereign. That's the answer. It's not your stuff. You parents of young children. I see Kara walking back there with Emmett. Emmett doesn't belong to you. Kara, sorry, John. Yeah, you've already come to grips with that. Our loved ones, I had the most meaningful conversation with a co-worker, an unbeliever the other day, who just lost his dad and he came in and he's sitting at my desk and he's wanting to know, he's wanting to make sense of it all. And I said, The minute you can wrap your brain around this, you'll be okay." And I quoted to him Romans 9. Does not the potter have the right over the same lump of clay to make one vessel for honorable use and one for dishonorable use? Does the thing formed have the right to respond back to the potter, why have you made me like this? And he pieced it together himself. An unbeliever! He says, wait, wait. So my dad was really not mine. He belonged to God. Absolutely. Saved or unsaved, he belonged to God. Yes. And is God not free to do with your dad? Emmett? Twenty school children in Connecticut? Whatever He deems best to bring Him the ultimate glory? Yes. But I don't understand. Join the club. I don't understand it at all either. But what must we do in those circumstances? We must let God be God. We must have this attitude that Job had and say, though He slay me, though He take everything from me, I will yet trust in Him because He and He alone is God. That's where we've disconnected ourselves. I feel. And that's why we respond so unbiblically to these certain things. Now, there's another example from the Old Testament that I've shared with some of you before. I thought it would be good to share it again. Genesis 37. You're all familiar with the story of Joseph, right? If there was any kid in the Bible asking for it, it was Joseph. Joseph was the favored son of his father. Joseph walked around interpreting the dreams of his family, saying, oh, you're all going to bow down to me. I had a dream about wheat in the field, and when mine rose up, everybody just kind of bowed to me. Those were fighting words in most families, right? But he got this technicolor coat. It's patchwork coat. It was supposedly very beautiful, coat of many colors. This led to more jealousy among Joseph's older brothers, and if not for the intervention of Joseph's brother Reuben, he would have been killed on the spot. Instead, his brothers hatched a plan to do what? They were going to kill him. They actually dug a pit, right? And they threw him in the pit. And they took some of his clothes and rubbed blood on him. And they were going to take him to the dad and say, look, he's dead. Well, if it weren't for Reuben intervening, he would probably have died that way. But what happened? They decided to sell him to a caravan of Midianite camel traders. They said, you know, we'll just sell him and have him carted off to some foreign land and we'll be absolved of any wrongdoing. We'll still take this bloody piece of cloth and tell Dad that he died. Well, Joseph was subsequently sold to Potiphar. A high-ranking official in the Egyptian government, you know. The whole thing happened with Potiphar's wife. Joseph lived through that. He got thrown in prison anyway. But then he interpreted the dreams of the butler, the baker. I always want to put the candlestick maker in there. But the candlestick maker wasn't there. The butler and the baker, he once again found favor with Pharaoh after correctly interpreting one of his dreams as well. He was elevated to the second highest position in the land, vice regent of all of Egypt. All this transpired for one reason, so that the reunion with his brothers could take place. You remember there was a famine in the land and they had to come to the vice regent to ask for grain. And so they come to the vice-regent, and who's sitting there? And here they stand, shaking in their sandals. Right? They recognize him. What does Joseph say? He says, don't be afraid. What you meant for evil, God meant for good. Can you imagine having to have this perspective thrown at you all at one time? Can you imagine all the dastardly things that you did to your poor brother? Can you imagine being Joseph and going through those things? How traumatic that must have been to be separated from your family at a young age, to be threatened with death, sold into slavery, have a strange woman come after you, you get thrown in prison, you interpret a couple of dreams, you get promoted. And now you've got a chance to exercise revenge on your brothers. What did Joseph see that most people failed to see? God's providence. He said, you might have meant it for evil, but God meant it for good. Well, this is another thing that I actually got from R.C. Sproul years ago. And some of you have heard this, you'll indulge me, but others may not have heard this. But I want you to, R.C. takes this scenario with Joseph to its logical conclusion. And I want you to listen to this because this shows that you might never be able to reason or make sense of God's providences while they're happening. You may never make sense of them on this side of glory. There may be things happen to you, horrific things in your mind, But the outcome later, which might be a century later, more than that later, might indeed be something that brings God untold glory. Listen to this. If there had been no coat, there probably wouldn't have been much jealousy among Joseph's brothers. No jealousy, no selling Joseph to the Midianite traders. No selling of Joseph to the Midianite traders, Joseph never would have gone to Egypt. No Egypt, no selling to Potiphar. No Potiphar, no encounter with Potiphar's wife. No Potiphar's wife, no prison. No prison, no meeting with the baker and the butler. No meeting with the butler and the baker, no meeting with Pharaoh to interpret his dream. No meeting with Pharaoh and Joseph never would have become prime minister. If Joseph had never become Prime Minister, the Jews would never have settled in the land of Goshen. No settlement in the land of Goshen, there never would have been an enslavement to the Jewish people in Egypt. No slavery, no need for the rescue of a crying baby in a wicker basket named Moses. No Moses, no Exodus. No Exodus, no law. No law, no real knowledge of sin. No real knowledge of sin, no need for a Redeemer. No need for a Redeemer, no Jesus Christ. No Jesus Christ, no Christianity. No Christianity, no hope for mankind. No hope for mankind, no hope for you. And it all started with a multicolored coat. You see how that sequence of events orchestrated in the hands of a providential sovereign God in retrospect makes all the sense in the world. That is how God brought about His divine purposes that resulted ultimately in you and me trusting in Christ as Savior. Again, there are those in the church who will insist that God just merely reacts to things. That He's just a good reactor. Well, again, we know that's not true, because it actually robs God not only of His sovereignty, but His omniscience and omnipotence as well. The fact of the matter is that each and every event that we've just noted, each and every event in your life is sovereignly orchestrated by Almighty God. It's just the way it is. And we would do well to come to grips with that. We would do well to understand that. I'm not saying understand the events themselves. But be able to stand with Job and say, you know what? I'll trust you even though this thing happened to me. I will yet trust you. And that's, you know, we see this exemplified in the lives of those super saints, as we like to call them, those believers who are very good at handling things that come their way. But it's high time we all, we all recognized God's sovereign plan, which includes both dark and light providences. I just think it's especially important, even at a time like this, what do we encourage people to do when they come to us and say, oh, why did God allow this to happen? Jesus was faced with a similar circumstance. Remember when the men were complaining that the tower had fallen on these men on their way down the road? What did Jesus say? Don't question why God had the tower fall on them. Thank Him that it didn't fall on you. That's one way to do it. But what's the capstone of all this? What would you tell somebody who says, I just can't make sense of it? Trust in God. Trust Him. Like the song says, trust and obey, for there is no other way to be happy in Jesus but to trust and obey. Well, that's my two cents. Anybody got any questions, comments?