This morning we are going to be taking up Westminster Confession of Faith, Chapter 5, concerning Providence, Section 2. You should have it printed there in your bulletin. Although in relation to the foreknowledge and decree of God, the first cause, all things come to pass immutably and infallibly, yet by the same providence he ordereth them to fall out according to the nature of second causes, either necessarily, freely, or contingently. From this section of the Confession of Faith we derive one final doctrine. Last week we talked about God as first cause and we spent all of our time in that discussion. Today Relatively briefly, we are going to talk about God's decree and how it comprehends all means and ends. As it's talked about here, God is the first cause of all things, but God does make use of second causes. He ordains all of the ends, all of the things that will ultimately happen, and all of the means that bring those ends to pass. Turning your Bibles to Ephesians 1, we've looked at this verse, but I wanted to point out something additional in it. Ephesians 1, verse 11, here in the Confession of Faith, it says that all things fall out necessarily according to God's decree. And in that very idea, you have both the doctrine of the decree and providence. God decreed it and purposed it before the foundation of the world, that's the divine decree, and then it happens to divine providence. And here it is in Ephesians chapter 1 verse 11 about halfway through, God's elect are described as being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will. So that language of the counsel of his own will refers to the decree and the fact that all things are being worked out according to it is the defined providence. I would have you observe here though when we talk about things that happen in providence God is the first cause of all of those things. God and his decree are the first cause of all things that happen. But this section is mainly concerned with second causes, that God uses second causes to accomplish his purposes. And then they enumerate three different sorts. You'll want to look at this in the confession. They said he uses some second causes that are necessary. This would be mechanical kinds of causality. You might think about the movement of pool balls on a pool table. If the ultimate end is that the eight ball is going to go into the corner pocket, that's going to be brought about by certain means. The striking of the cue upon the cue ball. the cue ball striking other various balls and ultimately with the end of the eight ball landing in that corner pocket these are what are known as necessary means, mechanical kinds of means things that are going around us all the time over against this you have the mention also of free second causes this refers to man and man's will and the angels as well, we wouldn't want to exclude them But God accomplishes his purposes through us frequently, through second causes that are free, our own acting according to the inclinations of our hearts. We'll talk a little bit more about how God uses that in just a moment. And finally, some things, some second causes they describe here as contingent or uncertain. That doesn't apply to God, nothing is contingent with respect to God. Things fall out exactly the way that he decreed them, down to the very smallest detail, nothing is uncertain for God. This is contingent with respect to man. Sometimes we say a thing is contingent when we cannot sort out all of the causal factors. So, for example, we talk about a certain contingency or probability in the way a coin will turn up when it's been flipped or tossed. Now, that doesn't mean that there's some mysterious force called chance acting upon the coin. What it means is that the causal factors in something that appears so simple are really so complex that human beings can't sort them out. So if you're thinking about the toss of a coin, how much pressure did I exert? Or how much force did I exert in the flipping of it? What was its rotational speed? What was the pull of gravity? The air density? Was there any breeze passing by? Did I catch it in the air? At what point did I? Or did I let it fall to the ground? Did I turn it over again before I laid it on my hand? The causal factors are so numerous and so sophisticated, even in something so simple, we say that It's contingent upon all of these various things and we can't sort all of them out. We also speak about things being contingent when they happen apart from human intention or purposing. So for example, we might say, Something as contingent you're riding down the road and the car broke down is apart from your plans, your inclination, apart from your purposes, it happened. But that's not to say that there weren't causal factors involved. Certainly there were. There were things going on in that car that you didn't know about and that you didn't plan for. Let me give you an illustration of how all of these things might work, how all of these means might conspire. Let us suppose that God has ordained the salvation of somebody, that he's going to regenerate him and convert him on a particular Sabbath morning. God, of course, as first cause, is going to act immediately in that, regenerating the heart. That is something that he does sovereignly and immediately through the agency of the Holy Spirit. But there are second causes involved that God is pleased to use. he will use the preaching of the word to do that and once you talk about that you have now introduced all of the other different kinds of secondary causes you have a free second cause the minister decided because of the inclination of his heart to appear in church that morning for the preaching of the word so did the congregation so you have free second causes that are involved you have necessary second causes in that the mechanical operations of our vehicles were necessary in order for us to be here and let's suppose that the young man had no inclination or desire to be in church that morning but rather it was a hot July morning his car broke down in front of the church and he was seeking air conditioning so he ends up hearing the gospel apart from his intention or purposing to the salvation of his soul so here you have God purposing the ends but also all of the means in their great variety in accomplishing those ends this is a most useful doctrine turning your Bibles to Genesis 32 as I was working through this not too long ago with Matthew Poole, this doctrine was well impressed upon my mind as well as its uses. One of the ways that we honor the God of Providence is by making use of means. Because God has been so pleased to accomplish ends normally by use of means. And so one of the ways we honor the God of Providence is observing the means that he has appointed for particular ends. you will remember the context of Genesis 32 Jacob is on his way back from Laban his forced exile because he stole his brother's birthright Esau was so angry he was going to kill him Jacob's mother has recommended that he flee Isaac thinks it's a good idea as well Jacob concurs and off he goes to live with his uncle Laban he's now returning with a great household and great holdings but he has to face Esau now and this is a frightening thing because Esau is riding out to meet him with 400 armed men and Esau's intentions are not altogether clear Jacob has a promise from God as we find it beginning in verse 9 Jacob is in the midst of prayer here pleading previous promises from God And Jacob said, O God of my father Abraham, and God of my father Isaac, the Lord which said unto me, return unto thy country and to thy kindred, and I will deal well with thee. Now notice what he's pleading here. God, you said that you were going to deal well with me, and yet now I am facing Esau and a small army, and we're nothing to withstand them. But you gave me this promise, so here we are. I am not worthy of the least of all thy mercies, and of all the truth which thou hast shown unto thy servant. For with my staff I passed over this Jordan, and now I am become two bands. Deliver me, I pray thee, from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau, for I fear him, lest he will come and smite me and the mother with the children. And thou saidst, I will surely do thee good, and make thy seed as the sand of the sea, which cannot be numbered for multitude. So here now he cites that and the previous promise, going all the way back to Abraham. You said that you were going to multiply me, and yet it looks as if my brother is going to kill us all. So he's pleading the promises of God. Now one of the things that I want you to note is that God not only ordained the end, Jacob is going to be dealt well with as God had promised and there's going to be the multiplication of the seed but he also ordained the means by which that would be brought to pass and the first means interestingly enough is prayer I've read this over and over again in Matthew Henry so many times that you hardly even want to point to just one text but reading through the Psalter with Matthew Henry over and over again he said notice that the Promises of God do not keep David from praying, but rather encourage him to pray. He lays hold of the promises of God in prayer, in believing prayer, and he finds comfort for his soul. But we don't want to neglect the spiritual means by which God brings things to pass, which is prayer. He would have us to employ those means. So here we can say that one of the spiritual means that God used to bring Jacob's deliverance the past year was prayer believe in prayer but we get from the Lord here Jacob gets a further assurance from this heavenly messenger or wrestler you remember this is the point where he meets this man that he later declares to be God and he has a wrestling match with the man trying to extract from the man a blessing and he gets his blessing verse 28 and he said thy name shall be called no more Jacob but Israel for as a prince hast thou power with God and with men and hast prevailed so here Jacob is getting ready to face his brother and he's given a new name Israel thou hast power with God and with man and thou hast prevailed a further assurance that things are going to go well when he meets with his brother so he has an old promise and he has a new promise and it seems as if Jacob goes forth at this point in faith but we should observe again that he's employed spiritual means and now he will employ natural means and we should say that this is not inconsistent with his faith but a thing most consistent he's honoring the God of Providence back to verse 17 listen to what Jacob employs as far as natural means And he commanded the foremost, saying, When Esau my brother meeteth thee, and asketh thee, saying, Whose art thou, and whither goest thou, and whose are these before thee? Then thou shalt say, They be thy servant Jacob's. It is a present sent unto my lord Esau, and, behold, also he is behind us. And so he commanded the second, and the third, and all that followed the drove, saying, On this manner shall ye speak unto Esau when ye find him. and say ye moreover behold thy servant Jacob is behind us for he said I will appease him with the present that goeth before me and afterward I will see his face peradventure he will accept of me now notice what Jacob is doing here very consistent with the wisdom of Solomon Solomon said a gift and secret pacifyeth anger and a reward in the bosom strong wrath and that's what Jacob is doing We have a means by which anger is going to be pacified. One, I'm going to humble myself before my brother. Notice all the language. Thy servant, Jacob, has sent my lord, Esau, a present. And notice he wants that said not one time, but multiple times. The first wave, the second wave, the third wave, and everybody else, when you pass by Esau, I want you to say this and present the gift. You remember he had set aside a certain portion of his holdings for a gift to Esau. All of this is to impress upon our minds that the use of means is not inconsistent with faith or belief in the God of Providence, but most consistent, knowing that he frequently accomplishes the ends that he's promised by use of those means. Some of you know this, but I was raised for the most part in a Pentecostal church. And this was something that came up from time to time. Somebody was sick, perhaps the illness was very serious, and then the theological question would come up, should they go to the doctor? Or is that unbelieving? Does that belie some sort of lack of faith if you go to a man for healing? We'll look at this under the next doctrine. It's altogether sure that God doesn't need to use means. But that doesn't mean He is displeased with means. He has established all of the connections between ends and means in His providence. And He established all of those connections in the creation and He said that they're good. He was happy and well pleased with them. It's a strange thing to say that now God doesn't want to use any means when it's so evident day by day that he does. For example, in ancient times if you wanted food to eat you better till the ground or raise some livestock. God is going to fill your belly and end by use of these means. God's always been pleased to operate in this way. But we might say, and we'll talk about this some more in just a moment, that even though God is pleased to have us use means, and it's a way to honor Him, yet we don't trust in the means. That can be sort of a subtle sort of thing, but we don't trust in the means, we trust in the God of the means, because if He does not bless those means, they will not prosper us anything. I've mentioned it before, but it's A lesson I don't think that I'll forget with our second son's celiac disease, we could feed him and feed him and feed him and he wouldn't be nourished. If God didn't bless the means, he would starve to death in spite of the fact that you are filling and full of the means. You see? God has to bless the use of those means or the body won't prosper, even with them. Let's look at the next section of the Confession of Faith. one more doctrine God in his ordinary providence maketh use of means yet is free to work without above and against them at his pleasure so in the last doctrine we said that God is pleased to make use of means and that he would have us to employ means but here we have a limitation or A special exception, the divines didn't want us to think that God was limited to means. This is not a deistic world. God did not wind up the world and is now letting second causes simply take care of everything. He is free to work without means, above means, or against those means. All that is good pleasure. So here our second doctrine is that God is not limited in the use of means or to the use of means. He can use a great variety of means, things you wouldn't expect, so he's not limited in the use of means, nor is he limited to use means, but he can always at his good pleasure act immediately. Let me illustrate briefly from the proof text what the divines mean by these three divisions. They say that God can work without means, above means, or against means. Now, without means, God can work without means. You might think of Christ's miraculous 40-day fast. A human being can't go that long and not continue in strength as Christ was 40 days later without the use of means. But here God preserves the body of Christ without any means. and he does that by his own sovereign good pleasure. He did it also in ancient times with Moses in a similar sort of thing. Perhaps more difficult, they say here that God is free to work above means and what that means takes a little bit more development. Turn in your Bibles to Romans chapter 4. The divines cite Romans chapter 4 beginning in verse 19 to illustrate what they mean by God working above means. And being not weak in faith, he considered not his own body now dead, when he was about an hundred years old, neither yet the deadness of Sarah's womb. He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strong in faith, giving glory to God, and being fully persuaded that what he had promised, he was able also to perform. Here you have what you might loosely term the miraculous birth of Isaac, miraculous conception and birth. Naturally speaking, the means were inadequate or insufficient to bring about the effect. And yet God still used those ordinary means, now insufficient, to bring about the desired effect. So what was in and of itself insufficient naturally? God made efficacious and so he worked above the means or did more than what the means should have been able to produce and we'll talk about how comforting that can be it's the most comforting doctrine and finally against means they cite here the fiery furnace and Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego normally you apply the means of fire to the body what's the end result going to be? the burning of the flesh and yet God worked above the normal means and preserved them alive so that there wasn't even the smell of smoke on their clothing when they came out of the fiery furnace so God is free to work without means above insufficient means or against means all at his good pleasure as it said and as far as an application all of this ought to stimulate our faith in a very practical kind of way turning your Bibles to Matthew chapter 6 this morning I think in particular of God's temporal provision of the things that we need we have a promise from God through Jesus Christ in the Sermon on the Mount concerning that temporal provision very much the way that Jacob had a promise from God concerning his well-being and the increase of his posterity Matthew chapter 6 beginning in verse 25 the words of our Lord Jesus Christ no man can serve two masters for either he will hate the one and love the other or else he will hold to the one and despise the other ye cannot serve God and mammon therefore I say unto you Take no thought for your life, which ye shall eat or which ye shall drink, nor yet for your body, which ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment? Behold the fowls of the air, for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns, yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they? Which of you, by taking thought, can add one cubit unto his stature? And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow, they toil not, neither do they spin. And yet I say unto you that Eve and Solomon in all this glory was not arrayed like one of these. If God so clothed the grass of the field which today is, and tomorrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith? Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat, or what shall we drink, or wherewithal shall we be clothed? For after all these things do the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. but seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you take therefore no thought for the morrow for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof this entire text is about the fact that one way or another we are going to be servants are we going to be servants to mammon? Are we going to be servants of God? That's very interesting the way that the Lord Jesus frames this up. This is really part of the Christian's great liberty. Christ has set us free from fretting over our temporal provision. What he said instead is, serve God. Serve me and my kingdom. and all of the other things will simply be added to you so you don't have to be a slave to the means of your material provision but instead God said work for me and all of the things that you need will simply be added to you as Jesus said here your father already knows what you have need of now some have looked at this text and twisted it as if Jesus was letting us off the hook as far as working here, but that's not what he's doing. But rather, when you go to work, you work as a servant of the Lord Christ, not as a servant of the paycheck. And that's a very different thing. I go and I work hard in the fulfillment of what Christ has called me to do, in the service of God and my brethren, and then I trust that he will add to me all of the things that I need. a most liberating doctrine. But we get this promise and nothing is more common. Jesus anticipates it here. Nothing is more common than for us to stagger at it through unbelief, particularly when there are difficulties. He anticipates fretting and fretfulness. You know, we don't have enough. What are we going to put on? What are we going to eat? What are we going to drink? We ask ourselves this kind of thing all the time. We look at the means. I look at my income and then I look at my expenses and I think I can't balance the book. The means are inadequate to take care of us. And at this point we forget that our Heavenly Father is not limited to means. But when we look at our income and we think this is not adequate in and of itself, our God is free to work above those means. And in my own lifetime, and I know in yours as well, you have had many testimonies of this. I was a married man going through seminary and not working. And somehow we made it through. We couldn't even budget because there was no income to budget. not any predictable or reliable income to budget and yet somehow month by month God always met all of the expenses sometimes he stretched the funds through the use of means my wife would look into sales and coupons and everything else so the means became more effective, more efficacious than they would have been otherwise sometimes there was an unexpected gift we would frequently just get money in the mail. The most remarkable thing, somebody was thinking about us as we were doing the work through seminary and just wanted to send us a little bit of money. And we saw that God was not limited to means. At my former church, One of the ministers there preached a sermon that was entitled, The God of Infinite Means and Variables. That he wasn't limited to our normal means. Our normal means would be the husband working and providing for the household. But I was in seminary and committed ethically to studying. And so we were cast upon God and God's providence and looked to Him and to the kindness of God's people to provide for us during that time. And God always did. And if you think about your own life, think about all of the times that you've worried and you've fretted, are we going to have enough? And yet, here you are. Your life has been a long testimony to the fulfillment of the promise that Christ has proclaimed here. And so why should we worry? And why should we fret? And why should we doubt? And we should even say that God can not only work above the means, but even if we should lose everything, God is free to work without any ordinary means. So even if everything should be taken away. Another text. Turn in your Bibles to 1 Kings chapter 17. I'm not sure quite how to categorize this whether God was using no means certainly no ordinary means whether we should take above means it's hard to categorize exactly but it's not normal and when we read the text you'll see what I mean this is not normal what happens here 1st Kings chapter 17 beginning in verse 1 and Elijah the Tishbite who was of the inhabitants of Gilead said unto Ahab As the Lord God of Israel liveth, before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years, but according to my word. And the word of the Lord came unto him, saying, Get thee hence, and turn thee eastward, and hide thyself by the brook Carith, that is before Jordan. And it shall be that thou shalt drink of the brook in ordinary means, and I have commanded the ravens to feed thee there. Ravens are going to bring bread and meat. Ravens don't normally act this way. But realize what's happened. Elijah, because of the danger, has been removed from all of his ordinary means of providing for himself. God has simply told him, go out to the desert. There's a brook there. I'm going to take care of you with that brook. And then I'm going to send birds to bring you food. Certainly a thing where we see that our God is not limited in the use of means, but he can make something as ordinary as birds very extraordinary in what he does with them. And then it goes on. So he went and did according unto the word of the Lord, for he went and dwelt by the brook Kerith, that is before Jordan. And the ravens brought him bread and flesh in the morning, and bread and flesh in the evening, and he drank of the brook. And it came to pass after a while that the brook dried up, because there had been no rain in the land. And the word of the Lord came unto him, saying, Arise, get thee to Zarephath. which belongeth to Zion and dwell there. Behold, I have commanded a widow woman there to sustain me." Well, this starts to sound a little bit more normal, doesn't it? Elijah must have thought, well, this is more... the brook's dried up. So I'm going and a woman's going to provide for me. This is a bit more normal. Not exactly. So he arose and went to Zarephath. And when he came to the gate of the city, behold, the widow woman was there gathering of sticks. And he called to her and said, Fetch me, I pray thee, a little water and a vessel that I may drink. And as she was going to fetch it, he called to her and said, Bring me, I pray thee, a morsel of bread in thine hand. And she said, As the Lord thy God liveth, I have not a cake, but a handful of meal in a barrel and a little oil in a cruz. And behold, I am gathering two sticks, that I may go in and dress it for me and my son, that we may eat it and die. Remember, the land is in drought and famine now, and this widow woman doesn't have enough to provide for her and her son, much less the prophet. These are the means that I have. I have a little handful of meal and a little bit of oil. That's what we have. And two sticks for lighting a fire. And Elijah said unto her, Fear not. Go and do as thou hast said, but make me thereof a little cake first, and bring it unto me. And after, make for thee and for thy son. For thus saith the Lord God of Israel, the barrel of meal shall not waste, neither shall the cruce of oil fail, until the day that the Lord sendeth rain upon the earth. And she went and did according to the saying of Elijah. And she and he in her house did eat many days, and the barrel of meal wasted not, neither did the cruce of oil fail, according to the word of the Lord which he spake by Elijah. so here we find that Elijah has been completely impoverished and God provides for him by means of birds, ravens and then God sends him after the brick dries up to be provided for by another impoverished person that doesn't have means and then provides for everybody miraculously through the multiplication of this meal and oil for many days as it's described here until God sent them rain again this is most useful for us not only when we think about our own households but we frequently talk about things and pray about things that are way beyond our means last week we talked about the reformation of civil government and the duties of government and we think what would be the normal means for that well the church but then we look at the disordered state of the church and we think we have not strength to convince the magistrate of anything we can hardly convince any other Christian reverend of what the magistrate ought to be doing much less convince the magistrate in this massive bureaucracy and government the means are inadequate we can't do it and yet we're told in the scripture that Jehovah holds the heart of the king in his hand and then he'll turn it, whatever way he's pleased to turn it. He's not limited to the means. And I'll tell you a most encouraging thing. When I studied through the book of Judges with Richard Rogers, he points out again and again that God frequently seems to delight in bringing reformation when the strength of the church is exhausted. when we look at the means and we say we've got nothing to do. You think about what happened in Judges. It seemed as if God would always retrieve them when they were at their very lowest point. To make it clear that it wasn't the hand of man that did it. It wasn't some great prince or magistrate. It wasn't some great priest or theologian. God himself by the might of his own outstretched arm used imperfect instruments, and the book of Judges is all about very flawed instruments, to bring reformation and revival to his people time and time again and to the magistrate as well you read through God's history of the church in John's Apocalypse and you'll see that over and over again the church has no strength under Antichrist the strength is spent they've been given into the hand of Antichrist for Antichrist to persecute them unto the dead and yet in their low and weak condition he brings a Luther out of a monastery In Bohemia, he incites some minds a little dissatisfied with the church. And a most remarkable thing happens. It seemed as if the light of the gospel had been almost snuffed out. And God, pleased to glorify himself, operates in this way. So in some ways we might look at our situation and say this is very very discouraging, but in some other ways we can say it's encouraging and that God has often been well pleased to work in just such a situation as this to glorify himself. And so when we go to God in prayer concerning the situation of our nation, let us not pray in unbelief, but believing that God is well able to do this. and he's already turned our hearts, our hearts, that we long to see it done and that ought to be an encouraging thing as well because our hearts are not made out of different material and stuff than George Bush, Condoleezza Rice or any of these other people that are involved in government. We trust in the Lord, as we said earlier, and not in the means. He works by means and we employ means, but He's not limited by these things. Let's finish up this morning with Psalm 62, and let's look at just a few verses. Psalm 62, beginning in verse 7. In God is my salvation and my glory. The rock of my strength and my refuge is in God. Trust in Him at all times, ye people. Pour out your heart before God. God is a refuge for us, Selah. Surely men of low degree are vanity, and men of high degree are a lie, to be laid in the balance there altogether lighter than vanity. Trust not in oppression, and become not vain in robbery. If riches increase, set not your heart upon them. This is a most striking text. You have the psalmist saying trust in the Lord and in his great strength and then he goes through a short series of means here and he talks about how trusting in them is a vain thing. Do you have a bunch of men of low degree? Do you have a mob and you think you're going to gain some strength by a mob? It's vanity. Do you have the support of men of high degree? Well, they're bound to deceive you. People that move in the halls of politics and great wealth are people that will fool you. Make a fool out of you. Have you come because you did not trust the Lord to trust in oppression or in robbery? This also is a vain thing and will not prosper. And if your riches should increase, if God should bless you, don't set your heart upon them. You remember what Paul said in 1 Timothy? Trust not in uncertain riches. These things can all evaporate. We employ means, but we never trust in means. We honor God by employing the normal means to the normal ends. But ultimately our trust is in God to bless those things. And when we find that those means are inadequate, we can still rest in faith that God is indeed a God of infinite means and variables. Let us pray. This Reformation audio track is a production of Stillwater's Revival Books. www.SWRB.com We can also be reached by email at swrb.com, by phone at 780-450-3730, by fax at 780-468-1096, or by mail at 4710-37A Edmonton, that's E-D-M-O-N-T-O-N, Alberta, abbreviated capital A, capital B, Canada, T6L3T5. You may also request a free printed catalog. And remember that John Kelvin, in defending the Reformation's regulative principle of worship, or what is sometimes called the scriptural law of worship, commenting on the words of God, which I commanded them not, neither came into my heart. From his commentary on Jeremiah 731, writes, God here cuts off from men every occasion for making evasions, since He condemns by this one phrase, I have not commanded them, whatever the Jews devised. There is then no other argument needed to condemn superstitions than that they are not commanded by God. For when men allow themselves to worship God according to their own fancies, and attend not to His commands, they pervert true religion. And if this principle is adopted by the papists, all those fictitious modes of worship in which they absurdly exercise themselves would fall to the ground. It is indeed a horrible thing for the Papists to seek to discharge their duties towards God by performing their own superstitions. There is an immense number of them, as it is well known, and as it manifestly appears. Were they to admit this principle, that we cannot rightly worship God except by obeying His word, they would be delivered from their deep abyss of error. The Prophet's words, then, are very important, when he says that God had commanded no such thing, and that it never came to his mind, as though he had said that men assume too much wisdom when they devise what he never required, nay, what he never knew.