We're asking God to intervene. We're asking God to intrude for our nation's well-being. We're asking God to step in to this calamity and bring redemption out of it. Does God ordain tragic events? That might be an uncomfortable question for some, but Scripture tells us that God's sovereignty over all things is a great comfort for Christians, especially in life's darkest moments.
Welcome to Renewing Your Mind on this Tuesday. Today, in his series When Worlds Collide, Dr. R.C. Sproul clarifies that God, in His providence, is the one who raises up nations and brings them low. Thank you for joining us today.
In a world where tragedies seem to be happening more and more often, Christians need a biblical view of God's sovereignty, both to find comfort for themselves and to offer hope to others. If this episode encourages you, consider sharing "Renewing Your Mind" with a friend who might benefit from this teaching. You can use the share link in your podcast app or on "Renewing Your Mind" YouTube channel to send today's episode to someone you know.
Now, here's Dr. Sproul with today's lesson. There's a word that has a rich history in the English language that's all but disappeared from our vocabulary. It's long ago disappeared from the secular mindset, but it's now almost completely absent from Christian discussion, and it's the word providence. If you go back a hundred, a hundred and fifty years ago, and eavesdrop on the conversations of American people as they wrote letters to one another, you would see this word sprinkled liberally throughout their conversation.
And in fact, they so often used the term providence that it became not simply a word that described the activity of God, but it became a word that was used as a name for God. You see, providence spelled with a capital P, and you see the reference to God as providence in the eighteenth century. For a very short period of time, if we would take the whole continuum of recorded history, what would be just a dot on that continuum would have been the appearance and the demise of the religious philosophy called Deism, and Deism had at its heart the assumption. That God is necessary to explain the origin of the universe. And so God was the first cause of all things.
And the favorite metaphor that was used by the deists was the watchmaker analogy, where God was like a cosmic watch designer who designed this clock and he pieced it all together, formed and framed it with springs and so on. And then after he had this clock established, he wound it up, gave it its start. Then removed himself from the picture, got out of the way, and let the universe to operate on its own internal power.
Now that view of deism that banished providence. As the idea of God being engaged and active, interfering and intruding into the universe and in the human history, that idea was banished by the deists. And though that religion lasted such a brief period of time, and it just disappeared in a flash. Nevertheless, that central idea of deism. Has persisted deeply into the psyches of Americans because, with this banishment of providence, the practical view of God that is held by most Americans is not the biblical view of God and His providence, but it is at best a deistic understanding of God.
We've also seen. In our lifetime, the banishment of God from the public square, where God is not to be spoken of, in the domain of public education, so-called neutral education, which is impossible. An education is either conducted within the framework of theism or against the framework of theism. There is no neutral ground there, but God is not permitted in the educational arena or in the. Arena of government, or as I said, in the public square, what we've experienced with religion in America since it is still guaranteed by the First Amendment is a protection of personal religion as long as it is contained on a cultural reservation.
Outside the sphere of everyday life. Religion is something for the edification of the soul, for personal strength, but it has no bearing on our theories or behavior in economics, or in government, or in education. See, that's deism, with a vengeance. But this calamity that has stricken our nation. On September the eleventh, two thousand and one, has recalled God from the reservation, and all of a sudden we see all spheres of American culture rushing to call upon God.
The group that was most silent in the initial days and weeks following the disaster was the. ACLU, they had enough to keep their plate full for the next two centuries, with all of the appeals to God that were going on in the schools, in the government, in the public square. When all of a sudden the nation said no to deism, and cried out once more for the reaffirmation of divine providence. At the heart of this national change of mind came a three-word slogan that was broadcast everywhere, appeared in signs, and quoted by millions as the national plea. And it was this phrase: "God bless." America.
Now that little phrase assumes certain things, doesn't it? Assumes, of course, that there is such a place as America. Not much dispute about that. But it also assumes that there is such a person as God, of which there's been much dispute. But the critical word in this three-word phrase is the word "bless." As a deist has no room for a God who has the capacity, the power, or the ability to bless a nation.
You see, for God to bless a nation, He has to be involved in their affairs. For God to bless America, He has to exercise His sovereign power over what's going on in the world. What are we asking for when we get on our knees and we say, "Please, God, bless America"? We're asking God to intervene. We're asking God to intrude.
For our nation's well-being, we're asking God to step in to this calamity and bring redemption out of it.
Now, as a Christian and as a theologian, I am throwing my hat in the air that the nation, all of a sudden, is calling upon God for His blessing. But there's much confusion about this. At the same time, as it is now politically correct to ask God to bless America, at the same time we reject any idea that God could have been involved in any way in the tragedy itself. That is, we allow now for God's. Providence, as long as it's a blessing.
But we don't have any room for God's providence, if that providence represents some kind of judgment. And yet, if we look carefully at the biblical understanding of God and construct our life and worldview on its basis, we see that God, in His providence, is a sovereign God who governs not only nature and the laws of nature, but He is the one who raises nations up and brings nations low. That in his providence comes both blessing, both weal, or prosperity, and calamity, and doom. Let me call your attention to a famous text that deals with this matter. In the forty-fifth chapter of the book of Isaiah, we read these words.
And Israel, my elect, I have called you by your name. I have named you, though you have not known me.
Now listen to what God says. I am the Lord, and there is no other. There is no God besides me. Again, how politically incorrect this is—that God should. Demand that he alone be served, because he said he's the only God there is.
There is none besides me. I am the Lord. There is no other.
Now listen to this. It's a form of literary structure that is called parallelism. I form the light, and I create the darkness. I make peace, and I create. Calamity.
Let me say it again. I make peace. I create calamity. I, the Lord, do all of these things.
Now, we've come halfway off the reservation. We've now said yes. There is a place. For God, in nature, there is a place for God in history. There is a place for God among the affairs of human beings, but that place is restricted to what blessing.
But we have no room in our thinking for God's involvement in calamity. But beloved, you can't have it both ways. You know, deism falls off one side of the horse by saying God's not responsible for blessing. American humanism falls off the other side of the horse when it said God is not involved at all in calamity. But if God is God, ladies and gentlemen.
Then he is sovereign over all things. My favorite illustration of this is when I used to teach a seminary course on the Westminster Confession of Faith. When we get to the third chapter on the eternal decrees of God, and the third chapter begins with these words: "That from all eternity God doth freely and immutably, according to the wise counsel." Doth ordain whatsoever comes to pass. Semicolon. And people are aghast when they look at this, and yet I said that this affirmation is not an affirmation unique to Reformed theology or to Calvinism or Augustinianism, but this is an affirmation.
That isn't even unique to Christianity. It's an affirmation found in the tenets of Judaism, and this is one place where we have something in common with Islam, because all three of those world religions would affirm the truth of that affirmation that God ordains whatsoever comes to pass. After the semicolon, but not in such a way as to do violence to the will of the creature or to eliminate secondary causes. Yet at the same time, the sovereignty of God stands over every human event.
So you ask me, did God ordain the calamity in New York City? I say yes, He did. If you ask me why he ordained it, I'm not going to be glib about that. We'll explore that in the next lecture. But there are many who are jumping to the conclusion that he ordained it to punish America.
I'm not going to make that assumption. I don't know why he ordained it, but I know that he did ordain it because if he didn't ordain it, it wouldn't have happened. And since it happened, I know for certain. That he ordained it in some sense. When you say, "Well, you mean the permissive will of God," well, let's look at that for a minute.
If we say that there is a God who is all powerful, if He is all powerful, He has the ability to stop things from happening. And if He is the God of Christianity, He's a God who knows in advance what is going to happen. And people say, "Well, he didn't ordain it; he just permitted it. He knew it was going to happen, but he chose to let it happen." Well, if I know something's going to happen, and I permit it in the sense of letting it happen, even though I have the power to prevent it from happening, for me to permit it—get this. I have to choose to permit it, and in so far as I choose to permit it, I purpose that it shall, in fact, come to pass.
And if I sovereignly purpose that it shall come to pass, I have, at least in this manner, ordained it, because God. Is a God who brings prosperity and also calamity for His own purposes.
Now, that's one of the most difficult concepts, even for devout Christians to deal with. Even though, again, it's found on virtually every page of sacred scripture, and it's at the very heart of the Christian's faith. Let me take a moment to read for you a passage that we find in the second chapter of the book of Acts, where we have here a record of Peter's sermon on the day of Pentecost. Where we read in verse 22 these words from the apostle Peter. Listen carefully, men of Israel.
Hear these words, Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested by God to you by miracles, wonders, and signs, which God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know. Him, listen. That is Jesus, being delivered by the determined purpose and foreknowledge or providence of God. You have taken by lawless hands, have crucified and put to death, whom God raised up, having loosed the pains of death, because it was not possible that he should be held by it.
Now Peter is giving a severe rebuke to his contemporaries for doing what? For executing Jesus, even though God confirmed Christ's identity through his miracles. Nevertheless, the people put him to death, and Peter by no means is absolving these people. From their complicity or their responsibility for the death of Christ, because it was by man that Jesus was delivered to Pilate, and it was by man that Jesus was sentenced to death, and it was by human hands that he was crucified. But all of these things Peter said did not take place through the exigencies of human history, but they took place according to the determined counsel of Almighty God.
That before anybody laid a finger on Jesus, when he went to the Garden of Gethsemane. Jesus was completely aware of his vocation. He had told his disciples only a few days earlier that he was going to go to Jerusalem. He was going to be delivered into the hands of wicked men, and that he was going to be beaten, and that he was going to be killed. And when he went alone to the Garden of Gethsemane and sweat drops of blood in prayer.
He begged God to change His plan, because Jesus knew that these things had been appointed by His Father, and the angel announced the conception of Jesus in the womb of Mary. And when Jesus was brought. After his birth to the temple for dedication, the prophets announced that this one would be a sign for the rise and fall of many, and that a sword was going to pierce the soul of Mary. Years before Jesus was put to death, the word of God revealed that it was God's plan that Jesus should die. And that he should die through wicked men.
Here is God directing His counsel, bringing His will to pass. Through a divine providence that works through human agency, in such a way as not to cancel out the will or the responsibility of the participants. The clearest example of this is in the story of Joseph in the Old Testament, who, because of his brothers' jealousy and envy towards him, is sold into slavery by a treacherous act of these brothers. And how, on the slave block, Joseph was purchased by Potiphar, whose wife then falsely accused him of abuse, for which Joseph was thrown into prison, where he languished for many, many years. And how, in the end of the life of the story of that, we read how God brings a famine to the land, and the people are desperately starving.
And so Jacob sends his sons down into Egypt to their storehouses, which ironically had been prepared through the supervision of Joseph, who has now risen to the level of prime minister of Egypt. And you have that poignant moment. Of the encounter and the reunion between Joseph and his brothers, when suddenly the brothers recognize Joseph, and they're terrified. Say, look at—he's in the position of power. He's going to wreak vengeance upon us.
He's going to put us to death for the sin that we committed against him. And what does he say? You meant it for evil. You had a purpose in mind when you acted. You chose, out of your own sinful condition, to deliver me into the hands of those Midianite traders, and you're responsible for that.
But beyond your decisions, beyond and above your choices, stands the sovereignty of God and His providence. Because Joseph says to them, "You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good." See that even in your wicked choices, God was at work to bring His perfect counsel. To pass in human history, that's what we believe. If we're Christians, that's our world view. That we believe in a divine providence who governs human history.
He doesn't just govern the paths and the circuits and the orbits of the planets, but He is sovereign over everything. And that's an idea. That defines our whole understanding of human life, our whole understanding of economics, our whole understanding of government, our whole understanding of education. And it's that concept that is on a collision course with every concept, every philosophy in human history that would deny. The sovereignty of God over human life.
Does that mean that God is sovereign over tragedy? Yes. I don't know about you, but I take great comfort in the knowledge that absolutely nothing is random. Not one molecule is outside of God's control, even when tragedy strikes. You've been listening to Dr.
R. C. Sproul in his series When Worlds Collide. It is freely available to stream on the Grow app from Lyconeer. And when you support Lyconeer, we'll also send you a digital study guide for this series.
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R.C. Sproul helps us to see that God works all things together for the good of His people. That's tomorrow here on Renewing Your Mind.
