Looking at God's work of providence in 2 Samuel chapter 17. Beginning to read at verse 1. Moreover Ahithophel said to Absalom, now let me choose 12,000 men and I will arise and pursue David tonight. I will come upon him while he is weary and weak and make him afraid and all the people who are with him will flee and I will strike only the king. Then I will bring back all the people to you. When all return except the man whom you seek, all the people will be at peace. And the saying pleased Absalom and all the elders of Israel. Then Absalom said, now call Hushai the archite also and let us hear what he says too. And when Hushai came to Absalom, Absalom spoke to him saying, Ahithophel has spoken in this manner. Shall we do as he says? If not, speak up. So Hushai said to Absalom, the advice that Ahithophel has given is not good at this time. For, said Hushai, you know your father and his men that they are mighty men and they are enraged in their minds like a bear robbed of her cubs in the field. And your father is a man of war and will not camp with the people. Surely by now he is hidden in some pit or in some other place. And it will be when some of them are overthrown at the first that whoever hears it will say, there is a slaughter among the people who follow Absalom. And even he who is valiant, whose heart is like the heart of a lion, will melt completely. For all Israel knows that your father is a mighty man, and those who are with him are valiant men. Therefore, I advise that all Israel be fully gathered to you from Dan to Beersheba, like the sand that is by the sea for multitude, and that you go to battle in person. So we will come upon him in some place where he may be found, and we will fall on him as the dew falls on the ground. And of him and all the men who are with him, there shall not be left so much as one. Moreover, if he is withdrawn into a city, then all Israel shall bring ropes to that city and we will pull it into the river until there is not one small stone found there. So Absalom and all the men of Israel said, the advice of Hushai the Archite is better than the advice of Ahithophel. Four, the Lord had purpose to defeat the good advice of Ahithophel to the intent that the Lord might bring disaster on Absalom. Amen. Father, we thank you for your word, and we pray that as we seek to understand it and seek to apply it, that your Holy Spirit would quicken that word to our hearts. And we pray that you would be glorified in the responses that we give. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. this past Monday as I was reading and rereading the first 14 verses of this chapter and asking God what exactly he would like me to draw out of this passage. There was a poem that kept coming back to my mind. It's a poem that my mother taught me when I was a little kid. And it's a very melancholy, but I think a very moving piece that captures the feeling and the spirit of at least one of the themes that we see in these first 14 verses. And even if you've never read the poem before, you've probably heard a quotation from it, quoted as the best laid plans of mice and men, or the more cryptic, the best laid plans, meaning that You know, as hard as you might plan and as essential as planning is, your plans can be dashed to the ground so easily. And the plans of pagans either can be prospered or they can go awry as well, depending on what God's wanting to do in the life of His church. Anyway, that phrase came from Robert Burns' famous poem, To a Mouse, written in 1785. And what had happened is that Robert Burns grew up as a poverty stricken plow boy and it was very tough, a very discouraging life and he was seeking to make plans to escape from that. But his plans kept getting dashed to the ground. He first of all lost his first love. And then he got cheated by the man who was training him to be a flax dresser. That was a little bit more lucrative job that maybe he thought he could make himself somewhat financially independent with. He then had his house burned down only to have to retreat to the poverty stricken life of a plow boy once again. And perhaps at the end of the sermon I'll explain why It may actually have been a good thing that that had happened, but anyway in 1785 as he's plowing a field on a a cold autumn day. His plowshare tore through the nest of a mouse and he saw the mouse shivering there in the cold and there were little baby mice that had been pulled out of the nest as well. And here its entire supply of food for the winter was scattered and its warm nest was being blown in the wind and it so emotionally connected with him in terms of his own dashed plans. that he wrote a poem about that mouse as a metaphor of how God had pretty much destroyed the plans that he had made in life. So it starts off by saying, We sleeket cowren, timorous beastie, O'er panics in thy breestie. Thou need not star away so hasty with bickering brattle. I wad be late to rin and chase thee with murdering prattle. And it goes on to talk about how easily our lives could be turned upside down in an instant, so, so quickly. And it's a poem that shows that at this point in his life, Burns was extremely discouraged, and he had either very little faith in God's goodness and providence, or he had no faith in the goodness of his providence. And even though he's gonna keep fighting on, even though he's gonna keep making plans, you get the feeling, he thinks, okay, my plans are gonna be dashed again to the ground, even if I do make plans. And though I much prefer the hauntingly beautiful, albeit, you know, the somewhat archaic language of the original Scottish English, what I'm going to do is I'm going to read it to you in modern English so you can get just a little bit of a feel for the sadness that was overwhelming him. Tiny, sleek, cowering, fearful mouse. Oh, what a panic is in your breast. You'd need not start away so hasty with pattering noises. I'd be loath to run and chase you with my murdering spade. I'm truly sorry that my world is broken into your world and justifies your ill opinion of men, which makes you startle at me, you poor earth-born companion and fellow mortal. I doubt not that at times you may steal. What then? Poor little animal, you must live. An occasional ear of corn out of 24 sheaves is a small request. I'll be blessed with the rest of the corn and never miss the ear you took your tiny house to in ruin. It's fragile walls. The winds are strewing and nothing now to build a new one out of densely growing grass and bleak. December's winds are following both harsh and keen. You saw the fields were bare and desolate and weary winter coming fast and cozy here beneath the wind. You thought to dwell till crash. The cruel plowshare passed right through your cell. That little heap of leaves and stubble has cost you many a weary nibble. Now you're turned out for all your trouble of house and home to endure the winter's sleety dribble and hoarfrost cold. But Mousy, you're not alone, and proving foresight may be vain. The best laid schemes of mice and men go often astray and leave us nothing but grief and pain for promised joy. You are blessed compared with me. The present only touches you, but oh, I backward cast my eye on prospects dreary and forward, though I cannot see, I guess and fear. It's not a very Christian perspective on the future, but it is a perspective that many Christians have, unfortunately. And the first 14 verses of our chapter are the best laid plans that Ahithophel and Hushai could come up with. Of course, they're in opposition to each other. And at this point only God knows the future but if you were in David's shoes or if you were in Hushai's shoes you might be tempted to have a perspective on the future just like Robert Burns had. I think most of us have at one time or another had our cozy little mouse nest sliced through with a plowshare and we get very very discouraged and disheartened and we think what's the point? Why even try to do this planning anymore? What's the use? But hopefully by the end of the sermon you will trade in Burns' perspective on providence for David's total trust in God's providence. I'm sure Trevor could teach for hours on some of the military points in this outline. It really is a pretty cool insight into Absalom and military life back in those days. kind of a window into their life. Now we know that Ahithophel's plan is by far the better plan. In fact it is an absolutely essential plan if Absalom is to succeed. And I praise God that our own plans get dashed to the ground by God from time to time. and that even more frequently God dashes the plans of humanists and tyrants to the ground with his own good purposes. And I'm not gonna spend a lot of time on these first two points. I'm gonna spend most of my time on point number three. But I do want to at least introduce you to the main ideas in the first 14 verses. The first thing I see in verse one is that Ahithophel's plan calls for immediate action. immediate action. Moreover Ahithophel said to Absalom, Now let me choose 12,000 men and I will arise and pursue David tonight. Now the first word in the Hebrew is a kind of a grammatical feature that indicates this is the very next thing that happens and the word tonight indicates he does not want to wait until the next morning to take action against David. He wants to strike while the iron is hot so to speak. He knew this was the time when David would be the most vulnerable And we've got to be quick if we're going to take advantage of that vulnerability. Now, of course, Hushai is going to do the exact opposite. He's going to try to buy David, his friend, a lot more time. The second thing that makes Ahithophel's advice very wise is that he's volunteering to do this dangerous job himself. And that's a good thing at this first stage in the coup, this vulnerable stage of the coup, because if Absalom gets killed, the whole coup could fall apart and Ahithophel is going to be in trouble. So it's much better that an experienced man like Ahithophel lead the troops out there and they not risk the potential of Absalom being killed. Absalom is the uniting feature of the whole coup. Now, as we'll see, Hushai is going to try to accomplish the exact opposite, but in order to keep it from looking like he's putting Absalom in harm's way, he's going to appeal to Absalom's pride, to his sense of manhood, and he's going to give the illusion of minimizing that risk of harm by saying, hey, we're going to take great precautions here. The third critical thing that verse one mentions is handpicked troops. The last thing that Ahithophel wants is a bunch of inexperienced soldiers who might flee if something goes wrong. The battle is going to require men with steady nerve. And of course, Hushai wants the opposite. He's going to want an army filled with inexperienced men, a huge army, so that if some of them flee, it could dishearten other troops and maybe they could get the whole army to flee. This is his hopes anyway. But it's not as if Ahithophel is going to take a small army himself. He says he wants to take 12,000 men with him. And if they strike immediately, it will be an overwhelming strike force against David's exhausted group. It will be at least a six to one ratio. And besides that, David is burdened with having to have some non-warrior elderly men there. He's got women, he's got children, he's got to protect. And so he really is at a vulnerable stage right now. Commentators guesstimate that on this first day of flight, David has an absolute maximum of 2,000 men, fighters, warriors with him, probably a lot less than that, but let's just say 2,000 men that are with him. So this is an overwhelming force, six times more soldiers what David has. Ahushai is going to stall for time and by doing that what he's going to do is he's going to enable tens of thousands of soldiers to defect to David by the time we get to chapter 18. Back to Ahithophel, The word tonight speaks of darkness. That's going to give them the element of surprise. When we get down to verses 21 through 22, we get the hint that David had not anticipated an immediate strike that night because he's camping on the west side of the Jordan. But when the spies come and tell him about these two different strategies that have been presented, He quickly gets everybody moved over the Jordan River to the east side that night. And so he would have been vulnerable to this attack. You can see that Ahithophel is a pretty smart guy here. If they had followed his plan, David would likely have been history. Verse two, and I will come upon him while he is weary and weak and make him afraid and all the people who are with him will flee and I will strike only the king. Now that verse speaks about taking advantage of David's vulnerabilities and we've already seen he was very vulnerable at this point. He needs to get the women and the children to safety. That will enable his troops to concentrate on their own objective. And that verse also speaks of a very narrow, a very focused objective on the part of Ahithophel, and that's to kill the king. Once the king's dead, okay, there won't be any more threat to Absalom's power. So again, that's another part of his brilliant plan. Very focused, very quick, very laser-like strike. And then verse 3 speaks of the final goal of his plan to make sure that there's no time for people to defect to David. If it's done speedily, even the soldiers who are with David can be reconciled to Absalom and be peacefully assimilated and he'll be the stronger for it. So take a look at verse 3. Then I will bring back all the people to you When all return, except the man whom you seek, all the people will be at peace. Now purely from a military perspective, this plan is a fantastic way to go and it's so convincing that verse four says, and the saying pleased Absalom and all the elders of Israel. There's nothing to not like about that plan. If Absalom had not bothered to consult Hushai, it may have been all over from David from a human perspective. But that's the beautiful thing about God's providence. God's providence can frustrate the most brilliant conspiracies, the cleverest plans, the most powerful armies, and the brightest of men. As Psalm 33 verse 10 says, the Lord brings the counsel of the nations to nothing. He makes the plans of the peoples of no effect. And if the church in America would only repent, God could do exactly the same thing in our own day. He could frustrate the councils of the humanistic Ahithophels that we have around us. They are no match for God's providence. Okay, Roman numeral two. I'm sure that if Hushai had heard this advice from where he was at, that he'd be sweating bullets. He'd be praying up a storm. Now it does sort of seem like he's not even in the room, but thankfully God makes Absalom curious about Hushai's perspective. It kind of reflects a little bit of insecurity. He's not a seasoned military. In fact, he's probably not fought a battle in his life. And so boy, he wants to get all the information that he can. So he calls for Hushai in verse five. Then Absalom said, now call Hushai the archite also and let us hear what he says too. And this gives Hushai an opportunity to try to totally discredit Ahithophel's plan and to suggest another plan that will stall for time for David. Now that's what David needs is time. Verses six through seven. When Hushai came to Absalom, Absalom spoke to him saying, Ahithophel has spoken in this manner, shall we do as he says? If not, speak up. So Hushai said to Absalom, the advice that Ahithophel has given is not good at this time. Now he's not saying it's never good, but he's saying it's really not good in this particular circumstance. Verse eight. Four said Hushai, you know your father and his men, that they are mighty men and that they are enraged in their minds like a bear robbed of her cubs in the field. and your father is a man of war and will not camp with the people." What he's going to try to do is he's going to try to shake Absalom's confidence in Ahithophel's advice first of all by reminding Absalom of who his father was. Even an established man like King Saul had never been able to capture David and of course his mighty men that had gone out with him There are all kinds of stories of the incredible feats that these men had done against all odds. In effect, he's claiming, hey, a six to one advantage against David is not an advantage at all, not with an experienced warrior like you find in David. Everybody knows about those stories. How many times had David won remarkable battles against far greater odds than simply a six to one kind of advantage? So those battles of David's men have been recounted so much that this little reminder of who David and his men were was designed to put a little bit of fear, a little bit of anxiety into the hearts of all of the elders who were listening. That's what Hushai hopes. Third, in that same verse, Hushai claims that David's strength and military tactics really have been severely misjudged. He claims it would be as foolhardy to send troops against him in the dark as it would be to take on a mother bear who's just been robbed of her cubs. Now that's a pretty powerful image. Nobody wants to mess with an angry mother bear. And he also puts doubt into Absalom's mind as to the feasibility of achieving the narrow objective of killing David. That's at the heart of Ahithophel's plan. And if David is not killed, well, he's going to be able to foment trouble later on. He's going to be a threat. And then secondly, it wouldn't look good to have the first military encounter with David to be a total failure. That would be demoralizing to his army. So he says in the last phrase of verse 8, And David will not camp with the people. Now that'd be a scary thought. What if David's not there? This is designed to put doubts about Ahithophel's plan into everyone's mind and to get Absalom willing to listen to an alternative plan. And it shows actually Hushai is a pretty quick thinker as well. Verse 9, surely by now he is hidden in some pit. Okay. and or in some other place. So it's really pretty good counterintelligence that he is giving. And the rest of verses 9 and 10, Hushai seeks to magnify Absalom's worst fears. And it will be when some of them are overthrown at the first that whoever hears it will say there was a slaughter among the people who follow Absalom. And even he who is valiant, whose heart is like the heart of a lion, will melt completely. For all Israel knows that your father is a mighty man, and those who are with him are valiant men. And this is especially likely to happen if Absalom's troops, some of them are killed in the darkness. It may only be a slaughter of a few hundred, but if people start to flee, others will get nervous and it could lead to disaster. And the last phrase of verse 10 implies that it could lead to Absalom's entire army fleeing. Now propaganda doesn't have to be true to shake confidence, right? It just has to put doubts into people's minds, perhaps make them a little anxious, put a little caution and fear there. And in any case, Hushai has to discredit Ahithophel's plan before anybody's going to be willing to listen to an alternative one. So in verses seven through 10, he's discrediting Ahithophel's plan. In verses 11 through 13, he's now saying, listen to an alternative plan that is better. where Ahithophel's plan can be summarized in the words, a strike while the iron is hot, Hushai's plan can be summarized in the words, look before you leap. And really, when you think about it, there's some plausibility to both of those plans. Though of course, we know from the narrator that Ahithophel's plan was the wise one. In any case, let's quickly look at Hushai's plan, then we'll get to point three. Verse 11 says, Therefore I advise that all Israel be fully gathered to you from Dan to Beersheba, like the sand that is by the sea for multitude, and that you go to battle in person. Now Hushai is recommending two things here. Now first of all, the use of overwhelming force, a massive army. Make it so massive that a manhunt for David will not fail to be able to find him. So he's trying to make Absalom feel secure in numerical strength. And then secondly, he asks Absalom to personally lead the army. I've already mentioned that that would appeal to Absalom's pride, to his sense of manhood. You know, you're not going to be a scaredy cat. You need to be the one who's up there fighting. And it was designed, if God made it possible, to enable Absalom to be killed on the field. Of course he doesn't talk about risk to Absalom because that would be counterproductive to what he's trying to achieve here. Instead he seeks to give the illusion of minimizing such risk by speaking of caution. Verse 12, so we will come upon him in some place where he may be found and we will fall on him as the dew falls on the ground. So what he is recommending here is a massive enough army that a manhunt will be successful. The geographical spread of the search will completely cover the ground. It'll be impossible for anyone to escape. So he's recommending a huge dragnet operation. Then in second sentence in verse 12, he recommends that they not allow a single survivor. and of him, and all the men who are with him, there shall not be left so much as one." Hushai's somewhat credible reasoning is, hey, David's not your only enemy. If these people are willing to leave with David, they're aligning themselves as your enemies as well. They are a threat to your throne as well. Hushai has to convince Absalom somehow that, hey, I'm on your side and give a credible enough plan that it makes it look like, you know, he is a totally loyal subject. So he says, don't let anybody escape. All of these people are enemies. And if you don't kill them, they're going to be a continuing threat. So where Ahithophel's strategy was tactical, Hushai's was focused on on overwhelming force, where Ahithophel wants to have a minimum, minimal loss of life. Hushai's plan calls for a maximal loss of life. We need to get rid of anybody that's not loyal. Now keep in mind, Hushai, remember, is a friend of David. He doesn't want either of these plans to succeed, but he's just, this is the best he can come up with to buy David time. That's what he's about. Finally, Hushai pronounces woe on any city that should harbor resistance to Absalom. Verse 13, Moreover, if he is withdrawn into the city, then all Israel shall bring ropes to that city, and we will pull it into the river until there is not one small stone found there. So he's calling for a policy of fighting under a black flag, which basically means no quarter taking no quarter, no survivors, just all-out war. All resistance must be put down. And the idea is, hey, this is going to make cities think twice about harboring David. When they know our plan, all the cities are going to cough up David. They're not going to want to be wiped out. like that. And to an inexperienced person like Absalom, who had probably never fought a battle in his life, it may have seemed somewhat reasonable. He may have thought, hey, it'd be great to start the kingdom with no enemies, no threats, no competitors to the throne. If we're scary enough to start with, no city will dare to side with David. So with the fears that Hushai has put into the minds of the elders, This plan was designed to put those fears to rest. So verse 14 says, So Absalom and all the men of Israel said, the advice of Hushai the Archite is better than the advice of Ahithophel, for the Lord had purpose to defeat the good advice of Ahithophel to the intent that the Lord might bring disaster on Absalom. Wow. What a change has happened in 70 seconds, which is about the time that it took me to read this when I was timing Hushai's little speech there. 70 seconds. Now apart from the commentator's inspired narrative, his commentary, we might not have known the reason for this change of mind, but the narrator makes it crystal clear this was God's doing. So that's the general meaning of all of these verses and you can maybe talk, it might be a fun discussion sometime to get Trevor or some other military men out there who have studied military tactics or actually John Obermiller, he's a kind of a history buff on military tactics as well. There's a lot of fascinating stuff in there I'm just not going to touch on. Instead what I'm going to do is I'm going to give seven applications that are relevant for every one of us. I started this sermon with the frustration that Robert Burns expressed over his own plans getting dashed to the ground over and over again. You can see in his poem the lack of confidence that that produced in him. He was fearful of planning once again. You know, it'd be a huge mistake to decide that planning is a waste of time. Yeah, of course. God can overturn our plans in a flash. But if you don't make plans, you're going to be in even worse trouble. Just think of that mouse. If that mouse decided, oh, I'm not going to store up any food for the winter because, hey, my nest might get busted up, then for sure it's going to starve. And so we should never pit our planning against Providence. That's not an option. Here's what we should get from this. Hushai was doing everything in his power everything in his power to give David time to plan, to strategize, and to regroup. And he himself has been given a plan by God's grace. So don't think that Providence is in any way even remotely like Islamic fatalism. Not at all like Islamic fatalism. Verse 14 calls Ahithophel's plans good plans. God himself says Ahithophel's plans are good plans. Ahithophel's plans were not bad. They were not destroyed because Ahithophel's plans were bad. They were destroyed because they didn't follow Ahithophel's plans. And in turn that was because God had planned disaster for Absalom. Every one of us should plan for the future. We should plan for retirement. We should plan for our kids' marriages. We should plan for what would an alternative be if I lost my job? Is there any alternative form of income? We should plan for a rainy day. We should map out a week. We should map out our day. Planning is absolutely essential in the Christian life. In fact, Proverbs tells us we absolutely must be like that mouse, planning and preparing for potential disaster. Even if the disaster never comes, it says that that's good, but we need to trust God all the way through. So it's not providence or planning, it's providence or planning while we trust God's providence. We need to submit our plans to God and ask God to bless our plans if and only if our plans will glorify Him and His purposes here on planet Earth. So planning is not contrary to providence. The Apostle Paul trusted God's providence implicitly and yet he planned as if it all depended on him. What's with that? Romans 1.13 says, And I do not want you to be unaware, brethren, that I often planned to come to you, but was hindered until now, that I might have some fruit among you also, just as among the other Gentiles. When you study the life of Paul, you see that he was constantly planning. Now, he was submissive to God. If God was wanting to blue pencil in his plans and change them, yeah, he was going to totally submit to that. But the point is, Paul had backup plans. If God providentially hindered this plan, I've got a backup plan that I can use. He was a planner. It's absolutely imperative that we be planning. Can God blast our plans? Yes, He can. And He almost guarantees He's going to blast our plans if we are not doing them to His glory and they're not going to be for our Good, but it's absolutely essential we not allow our doctrine of the sovereignty of God to make us quit planning. Have I harped on that enough? Planning, planning, planning. Very, very important. The second application is that you must not pit providence against wisdom. God doesn't want us passively waiting for providence to bail us out. God wants us to use our heads. He wants us to ask for his wisdom. And of course, wisdom always comes from God. Every man, woman, and child on planet Earth is given wisdom in some dimension by God. That's why John 1, verse 9 says that He enlightens, that's Jesus, enlightens every man that comes into the world. No exceptions. He enlightens every man that comes into the world. If it was not for God's providence, no farmer could function. No mathematician could calculate the safest trajectory for a spacecraft to come back into the earth. No engineer could properly build a building. No military leader could have the foggiest idea on how to win a battle. Wisdom and providence are not in opposition. There could be no wisdom without God's providence. It's totally dependent on His providence. Let me give you an example. Isaiah 28 says of every farmer who plows, who sows his seed in the right field and in other ways seeks to maximize his crops, it says this about him. God instructs him in right judgment. This also comes from the Lord of hosts who is wonderful in counsel and excellent in wisdom. That's Isaiah 28 verses 23 through 29. So Isaiah 28 is saying, Every wise thing that a farmer does comes from God, whether that farmer is a pagan or whether he is a Christian. You see, the reason Ahithophel's advice was good was because God's providence had given him that wisdom. Was he an enemy of God? Well, of course he was. But God still gave him that wisdom. And the reason Ahithophel's wisdom was ignored was because God chose to frustrate it. And so the bottom line is that the enemies of the church in this nation could not think, they could not cough, they could not spit without God's providence. Okay, God gave the engineers the wisdom to build the Obamacare website, and contrary to some people's opinion, it does take a lot of wisdom to put those things together. And God was the one who frustrated that wisdom because other jerks weren't acting like businesses should be acting. God can cause these things to work or He can cause them to not work. So the balance is to seek wisdom from the Lord, to strive with all your might to grow in wisdom, to yoke your wisdom to God's purposes by serving Him, and then to realize that providence alone can prosper your wisdom. It's not wisdom or providence, it's wisdom in submission to providence. Now the third application is somewhat related. There was a complete switch around of mind, will, and emotions between verse 4 and verse 14. As I said, it was like 69 or 70 seconds. Each time it was a little bit different, but right around there. And we might chalk that up to chance, but there is no such thing as chance according to the Bible. And verse 14 makes it clear their minds were changed because of God's providence. because God wanted to frustrate the plans of Absalom. Their emotional confidence was changed from confidence in Ahithophel's plan to fear to confidence in Hushai's plan. Why? Because of God's providence. Their will was changed from being geared to implementing one plan to being geared to implementing something totally different. Why? Because of God's providence. And we can have the same confidence today. God's hand is not too short that it cannot take on the conspiracies that are all around us. God can change their minds, their wills, and their emotions just like that, within seconds, within minutes. He did it in this chapter. Proverbs 21.1, the king's heart is in the hand of the Lord like the rivers of water. He turns it wherever he wishes. And if God can turn the heart of a king anywhere he wishes, he can turn anyone's heart wherever he wishes. And of course the heart is the seed of the mind, the will, and the emotions. Now let me read that again. The king's heart is in the hand of the Lord like the rivers of water. He turns it wherever he wishes. And isn't that exactly what God does every time he converts somebody? Acts 16 verse 14 says that God opened Lydia's heart so that she would pay attention to the things that Paul was talking about. On the other hand, in Exodus, it says God hardened Pharaoh's heart so that he would not pay attention to what Moses was saying, so that he would not listen to him. Why? Because God had determined to destroy Pharaoh. So don't think that God's providence cannot handle the depraved minds, wills, and emotions that are out there in pagans. He can. Even though God hardened the heart of Pharaoh so that he could manifest his glory, it says he gave the hearts of all of the Egyptian citizens favor toward the Israelites so that they gave jewels and money and whatever it was that the Israelites wanted. He changed their hearts. That was the entire citizenry there. And today, God can harden the heart of a pharaoh that brings greater glory to his name, greater holiness to his church, but he can regenerate hard hearts. He can give them a new heart, which means a new mind, a new will, and new emotions. And I want you to consider these three verses. Psalm 110, verse 3. Your people shall be willing in the day of your power. Your people shall be willing. Some translate it, your people shall be volunteers in the day of your power. Either way, it's God's power that causes it to happen. Philippians 2.13, for it is God who works in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure. Isn't that an amazing thing? God's providence, that work, even in our wills and in our actions. Deuteronomy 30 verse six. And the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your descendants to love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul that you may live. Now of course God does all of that without making us robots. He maintains our free volition. That's the absolutely staggering thing about God's providence. If you come away from this sermon doing nothing else but saying Lord, I don't know how you do this, but it's absolutely astounding the way your providence works, even with the free actions of men. You move their hearts and they think it's their own hearts doing it. Well, it is their own hearts doing it. They're choosing, but God is still working all through it. God's providence is something that should draw out our hearts in worship. Now, I don't need to belabor the fact that verse 14 means that providence and change are perfectly consistent together. Think of all of the changes required for Nineveh to overnight repent for the better. It was a change for the better. On the other hand, the fact that America has been changing for the worse should not be construed to say God's providence is not at work. I'd say the exact opposite. I'd say over the last 50 years, there's been changes to the worst because God is bringing discipline upon the church of Jesus Christ in America. For my devotions on Wednesday, I was reading from 2 Chronicles chapter 28. about the life of King Ahaz. And I'm just sitting there absolutely astonished at this king. He's worshiping Baal and prophets are telling him you shouldn't do that or God's going to curse you. And God's providence brings brings disaster after disaster after disaster after disaster time and time again into his life and he won't listen. He doesn't care. And why was it that that was allowed to happen in God's providence? Because it was not God's purpose that Ahaz should repent. But it was God's purpose to use Ahaz and all of these disasters that were punishing Ahaz to discipline the church that was backslidden at that time. And God was totally successful in that. So God brings profound change in the church of Jesus Christ for the good. by allowing no change in the heart of Ahaz for the bad. The same providence at work in both. Now the changes that happen in culture whether for good or for bad are providentially designed for God's glory and the church's good. And I am convinced if the church would finally wake up and learn its lessons and repent and turn back to God's grace and to the five solos of the Reformation, I am convinced that God's providence would immediately begin making changes for good in our culture. But in the meantime, the changes that are happening for the bad also flow from God's providential guarantee that the Lord is not mocked. Whatever a man sows, that he will also reap. Now what about providence and mistakes? Can those really go together? Well let's think about that. Was it a huge mistake for Absalom and all of the elders to choose the advice of Hushai? Absolutely. It was a disastrous mistake. Take a look at verse 23. Verse 23 says that Ahithophel immediately knew that it was all over when they made that mistake. It says, now when Ahithophel saw that his advice was not followed, he saddled a donkey, and arose, and went home to his house, to his city. Then he put his household in order, and hanged himself, and died, and he was buried in his father's tomb. He was smart enough to know this was a fatal mistake. And not everybody has that big picture perspective, but he did. He could see, it was like these chess players, you know, who can see 10 moves down the road. He could see 10 moves down the road that he was going to lose, and he conceded long before anybody else realized that they were not going to win. Hushai seems to have had that 10 moves down the road kind of big picture perspective as well. And actually, sometimes that's a curse. to have this kind of wisdom because you see all the mistakes that everybody's doing around you and you warn them about it and they think you're a nut and you're grieved over and over again long before anybody else is grieved. They're grieved when the disaster hits, you're grieved all the way through. So it can be kind of a curse to have that kind of a wisdom. But anyway, verse 14 says that this fatal mistake was of the Lord. He's the one. who got them to make that mistake. When it's time for God's enemies to be punished, they too will make fatal mistakes. And my point in bringing all of this up is to give you a firmer reliance upon divine providence. Yes, the enemy is strong, and yes, the enemies are gaining momentum. They're threatening to overturn everything good that our founding fathers stood for in America. And it's important that we affirm providence, but it's important as well that when we affirm providence, we not deny the danger of potentially losing everything that past generations have built up in America. We could lose it all. Potentially, we could. We are in danger. Humanism is a huge danger. But it's a danger within the scope of providence. That's what we need to realize. I like the balance in Psalm 93. In fact I'm going to ask you to go ahead and turn over to Psalm 93 because this is just a fabulous little psalm on providence. And it's likening the enemies of the church to the waves of the sea. that are threatening to overturn everyone. Psalm 93 beginning to read at verse 1. This is first of all describing God's ruling providence. The Lord reigns. He is clothed with majesty. The Lord is clothed. He has girded himself with strength. Surely the world is established so that it cannot be moved. Your throne is established from of old. You are from everlasting." So there is God's rule of providence. He rules over everything. Now I want you to look at the incredible opposition of the satanic forces using the analogy of a perfect storm. And the question comes, is God's providence in that? The floods have lifted up, O Lord. The floods have lifted up their voice. The floods lift up their waves. If you've ever been on the ocean during a storm, you know it can be incredibly scary. Sometimes those waves, it's just like huge mountains coming at the ship, and that's what it's like in God's enemies. They are threatening to undo the ship of the church, as it were. And yet, just as those mighty waves are no match for God's providence, our enemies are no match for God's providence. Instead of freaking out, the psalmist says, the Lord on high is mightier than the noise of many waters and the mighty waves of the sea. Your testimonies are very sure. Holiness adorns your house, O Lord, forever." And in the same way, 2 Samuel 17 does not deny the danger of Absalom's forces and what they posed for David. They were towering, mountainous waves threatening to engulf David and his men. And David took that threat seriously. He did not ignore it. He was not fatalistic. Even though I'm sure he and his men had their adrenaline running, and you'd be a fool if you didn't have your adrenaline running, you know, when you're in a perfect storm like that. Even though their adrenaline was running, David was still able to trust that God is mightier than the waves of the sea. Okay, an incredible balance that we see in him. Realism about danger, trust in God's power. Okay, just two more applications from 2 Samuel 17. The first is that providence and disaster are not in opposition to each other. When we have disaster happen to us, we think God's absent. We think, where is God in all of this? How come he's not blessing me? We tend to think that he is absent. But this passage says that the reason Ahithophel's advice was defeated, take a look at the verse there, it says, to the intent, that the Lord might bring disaster on Absalom. Who brought the disaster? The Lord brought the disaster. Now in the previous chapter it tells us that the disaster of David having to run from Jerusalem, and that was a disaster, it was very inconvenient that that was brought by the Lord as well and David recognized that. So the same providence that is using this disaster lovingly to discipline David is using this to bring an absolute disaster and judgment upon Absalom. But the key point is that providence produced it. And what is true of that disaster is true of all disasters. Amos 3 verse 6 asks this rhetorical question. Does disaster come to a city unless the Lord has done it? And the answer is no. There has never been any disaster that has struck any city in any period of time that the Lord has not brought. God is in the disasters. And I think the application for ourselves, we should not be afraid of any disasters that might strike our nation. They come from the hand of a loving, holy, and omnipotent, purposeful God who is working all things according to the counsel of His will. That's what Paul says in Ephesians 1, verse 11. Working all things according to the counsel of His perfect will. And then finally, don't think that advice is unnecessary simply because God's providence controls all things. Instead, realize that God can use your advice, as small as you think it is, to advance his kingdom just as God used Hushai's advice to influence Absalom and all the elders of Israel. Now it is appropriate to pray that God would frustrate the counsels of modern Ahithophels just like David did in chapter 15. God's providence can overturn counsel, it can sustain counsel, but scripture is quite clear, counsel, advice is absolutely essential and it's totally consistent with providence. Proverbs 15 verse 22 says, without counsel, plans fail. But with many advisors, they succeed. He didn't say, well, it really doesn't matter whether we plan or don't plan. Whether we get advice or don't get advice, God's providence is going to do whatever. No. He says, without counsel, plans fail. But with many advisors, they succeed. Proverbs 12, 15, he who heeds counsel is wise. Proverbs 20 verse 18, plans are established by counsel, by wise counsel wage war. And so I never plan on stopping giving advice on Facebook and Twitter and in preaching and writing and any other forums that God gives me the opportunity to do so. Sometimes it's tempting to wonder if it's even worthwhile because some people seem utterly uninterested. But you never know what your advice is going to do in some person's life. Instead, I trust Providence so much, I'm willing to give counsel and pray that God would bless it. And I really encourage you guys to do the same thing. So, if you're a Robert Burns this morning, who is tired of having your plans dashed to the ground like the mouse in its nest, I want you to do three things. First, remind yourself that providence runs according to God's plans and God Himself commands us to imitate Him by planning. We're made in His image. That involves planning. So don't pit planning against providence. Second, realize that God sometimes guides us by dashing our plans to the ground. Robert Burns may never have become the kind of poet that he was if plan after plan after plan had not been dashed to the ground. The dashing of those plans matured him and it guided him. God guided him from certain things and into other things and I think the literary world rejoices at the body of literature that we have from him. Third, remind yourself that Paul did not give up on good plans simply because he was providentially hindered. Okay, that would be fatalism. Fatalism and passivity is a heresy. It is incredibly dangerous. Don't even remotely think that it's okay to be fatalistic. The same apostle who said that everything in history is foreordained by God. There's not even a molecule or dust or hair you can breathe into your nose that God has not ordained. Everything is ordained by God according to Paul. The same Paul who wrote that also said that he often planned to come to Rome but was providentially hindered. And so what does he do? Does he give up? No. He's not fatalistic. He didn't let one failure make him give up. It was a good plan so he kept at it. But until God prospered those plans, he rolled with the punches, came up with backup plans that were still glorifying to God. And if you imitate Paul rather than Robert Burns, you will face the past not with frustration. You will not face the future like he did, with fear. Instead you will realize that every change that God has made is making and will make is for his glory and for your good and what you're gonna do is you're gonna look to the past and you're gonna learn from it and you're gonna look for the future with faith and hope and you're gonna look up with love and trust and thanksgiving to Almighty God and it will transform your life. It will be such a stabilizing doctrine in your life. It'll make you joyful and hopeful as you make plans to his glory. May it be so, Lord Jesus. Amen. Father, we thank you that you have made us in your image, not to be passive, not to be taken dominion over, but to be dominion creatures, that we are to imitate you even in our planning, and yet to do it not independently, but as image bearers trusting you. Help us, Father, to be a planning people, to be a persevering people, a people of faith, and a people who trust your good and wise and purposeful providence absolutely. I pray that you would evaporate all discouragement, all frustration out of our lives. And as we see opposition, as we see difficulties, instead of being frustrated, looking for your hand in this, rejoicing, taking on a perspective of anticipation of what good you are going to bring from it. Help us to be overcomers, overcoming the obstacles that Satan throws into our pathway. Help us to do all that is in our power to glorify You and to keep pressing into the upward calling that You had given to us in Christ Jesus. Bless this, Your people, we pray in Christ's name. Amen.