Hello, welcome to today's program. I am your host, Patrick Hines. I'm the pastor of Ridwell Heights Presbyterian Church in Kingsport, Tennessee, and I'm joined today again by Brother Jim Thornton, the pastor of Reformed Faith Presbyterian Church in Clarksville, Tennessee, and Henry Johnson, who is the pastor of Trinity Presbyterian Church in Tazewell, Virginia. The great R.C. Sproul, in his wonderful book that I think all three of us would heartily recommend, Chosen by God, said this, quote, If something could come to pass apart from His sovereign permission, then that which came to pass would frustrate His sovereignty. If God refused to permit something to happen, and it happened anyway, then whatever caused it to happen would have more authority and power than God Himself. And if there is any part of creation outside of God's sovereignty, then God is simply not sovereign. If God is not sovereign, then God is not God. If there is one single molecule in this entire universe running around loose, totally free of God's sovereignty, then we have no guarantee that a single promise of God will ever be fulfilled. Perhaps that one maverick molecule will lay waste to all the grand and glorious plans that God has made and promised us. If a grain of sand in the kidney of Oliver Cromwell changed the course of English history so our maverick molecule could change the course of all redemptive history, maybe that one molecule will be the thing that prevents Christ from returning." End quote. All three of us would give a hearty amen to our dearly departed brother, R.C. Sproul. But we're going to pick back up here in Providence. And I know for a lot of people, a lot of people in the broader evangelical world who are not used to confessions of faith that are very detailed, like the Westminster Standards, like the Continental Reform tradition, the Heidelberg Catechism, the Belgic Confession, and other great confessions of faith that come out of the Reformation. God did not merely create the world and then sit back to see what would happen. God had a decree. And what the word decree means is a plan. God created everything in the entire universe because he had a plan. to glorify Himself and to glorify the whole spectrum of His attributes. And God accomplishes or executes that plan in His work of creation and in His work of providence. And just to summarize again, I highly commend the Westminster Shorter Catechism. I think it's a great summary of biblical and Christian truth, but the question 11, what are God's works of providence? God's works of providence are His most holy, wise, and powerful, preserving and governing all His creatures and all their actions. And we covered the first two points of Chapter 5 of the Westminster Confession, which is on providence, and the previous chapter, Chapter 4, was on creation, and the chapter before that was on decrees. So God executes His decrees, His plans, in that He created the universe, and now providence, and that He governs it. So I want to read point number three about providence and give it to Pastor Thornton to explain. God in His ordinary providence maketh use of means, yet is free to work without, above, and against them at His pleasure. So what's that talking about there? Well, God is sovereign completely, and sometimes He uses means, and normally I think He uses means, yet He's free to work without the means. He is not limited by means. He's not constrained at all by the means. He can work against them, above them, at His pleasure. Whatever He wants to do, He's going to do. He can do. Almighty, and He's going to do what He's going to do. Yes, that's right. So, He makes use of ordinary means. And so, when we talk about providence, we're not talking about, well, we just kind of sit back and let God do everything. That's not what we're talking about at all. He makes use of means like, for example, our prayers. One of the illustrations I've often used—and I would like to get Henry to comment on this after I read this passage, just to make an introductory comment—James chapter 5, I think, is a really, really helpful chapter, the illustration about Elijah and his prayers. It says in James 5, 17—well, actually, I'll back up and start at verse 16. Confess your trespasses to one another and pray for one another that you may be healed. The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much. Okay, so stopping there from the scripture, our prayers are part of God's decree. So when I have a burden to pray for someone, I can bow my head and pray knowing that God decreed from all eternity that I would bow my head and pray for that in that very moment. And then verse 17 of James 5 says, Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three years and six months. And then verse 18, And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth produced its fruit. Now, I've often read this passage and said, did God need Elijah's prayers to stop the rain? Well, the answer is no, he didn't. But in this particular case, God's plan was to use Elijah's prayers to stop the rain and use his prayers again to start the rain. Now, God could stop and start rain however he wants, but in this particular instance, it was God's plan to make use of Elijah's prayers, because our prayers are powerful. In fact, it's the very doctrine of providence that animates us to pray, knowing that God makes use of that means. Prayer is a powerful means that we are commanded in Scripture to engage in. Henry, could you elaborate maybe a little bit more on that point? Well, that's a wonderful illustration. You see a similar illustration in chapter 4, at the end of chapter 4 of the book of James, talking about us making plans. and that we need to make our plans, we are responsible to do what we believe is pleasing in God's sight, and we are to live understanding that God is sovereign, and that, as we read in Psalm 33, the Lord frustrates the plans of the people, but the plans of his heart stand forever. And so in James chapter 4 verse 13, come now you who say today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town, spend a year there, trade and make a profit. Yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, if the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that." And so here's a passage that shows that, yes, we are responsible. God is sovereign. We make our plans. How many times do you make a list of what you're going to do in a day? And at the end of the day, sometimes I don't have anything that I had on my list checked off. Well, praise God, that's not how it is with the living God. Whatever he plans, he does. And we see that taught throughout scripture. And God doesn't violate the will of man, but God is powerfully at work. And here we see, we make plans about, we're going to go to such and such a town, engage in business, and then make a profit and come home. And the Lord instructs us, we ought to live, yes, seeking to do the best we can to honor and obey God, but to do so in faith, to do so with an eye toward acknowledging and trusting and resting in the providence of God. If the Lord wills, here's what I'm going to do. And you don't hear people talk that way much anymore, sadly, because this teaching of Scripture of the providence of God has been sadly lost from the vocabulary and the thinking of the church at large. But it is very important, and it is biblical, and it is something that we see throughout Scripture. God works through ordinary means, but he can also use extraordinary means. And as Brother Jim pointed out, God's not limited. God wasn't dependent on Elijah's prayer that it not rain. And we see that God could cause an axe head to float in Elijah's successor's day. That is working against the normal laws that God has set up, the ordinary means. I could try for the rest of my life to make an iron axe head float. I can't do that, but God can. He can do all his holy wills. And so that quote that you read at the beginning, Patrick, from R.C. Sproul, a wonderful quote, and it is a truth. There are a lot of people who are uncomfortable with God, who alone is God. But that's who the God of the Bible is. He works through ordinary means, but he is not limited to those ordinary means. And we live not in a world of chance or blind fate, but we live in a universe that is governed by Almighty God. And if you're a Christian, that is a tremendous comfort to think that nail-scarred hands are holding us, guiding, protecting, keeping us, that every molecule in the universe must obey the will of Almighty God. What a comfort! And if you're not a Christian, it is a terrifying thing to think that God Almighty is not only ruling, but he's the judge of all the earth. And that's why the gospel is so sweet because this God who controls the entire universe has given his son to offer redemption to fallen mankind. You know, my father was an agnostic when he got back from the Vietnam War in 1967, and my mother told me he identified as an agnostic. Before he went to Vietnam, he had been the president of the Baptist Student Union at the University of Cincinnati, but he didn't go to church for about the next 10 years. Thankfully, by the time I was born, God worked through my mother and saved my father's soul when I was a little boy, so I never knew him as anything other than a believer. But he used to preach a sermon called My Agnostic Friend Now Deceased, which was about himself and how he came to know Christ. But part of that message was he would read quotations from his diary. And my dad was a writer. My dad wrote constantly and was a thinker and very, very intelligent. well-educated man, and he used to describe the universe as vast and terrifying, because it's just a crapshot. It's governed by chance, you know, and you don't know what's going to happen. And I remember that when I was young, thinking that is terrifying, to think that there are things that are outside of God's control or plan. The first time I ever read Sproul say that, I thought, oh, that is just such an overstatement. I mean, one stray molecule means we can't trust any of the promises of God. But if you reflect on that and think about it, it's true, because that means that there's something else that's ultimate. that God cannot control. That's outside of the strength of His power, and that's just not the case. Okay, Jim, let's look at point number four. I'll read it, and then if you could comment on it. The almighty power, unsearchable wisdom, and infinite goodness of God so far manifest themselves in His providence that it extendeth itself even to the first fall and all other sins of angels and men. and that not by a bare permission, but such as hath joined with it a most wise and powerful bounding, and otherwise ordering and governing of them, in a manifold dispensation to his own holy ends. Yet so, as the sinfulness thereof proceedeth only from the creature, and not from God, who, being most holy and righteous, neither is nor can be the author or approver of sin. It's pretty heavy-duty stuff, isn't it? Yeah, there's a lot there. Yeah, why don't you start us off, brother? Okay. Where do I start? It reminds me a little bit of judo. those who are not familiar with judo, you take your enemy's movements and use them against them. So they're taking a swing at you. You take that momentum and you use it to control them or defeat them. And so God in his sinlessness, his infinite goodness, He can work through all these evil things, whether it be the fall, whether it be Joseph's brothers who sold him into slavery, even almost killed him. God in His wisdom is able to work through these things in a way that is hard for us to comprehend because it's something that We are so far from being able to do the way he does it. It's just amazing what he can do. You know, we have a certainty that goes beyond our comprehension, Calvin said. And so it's quite understandable here that we may not be able to comprehend this, but we can sure rest in it and have a certainty about God's faithfulness and his power, his wisdom and his ability. I mean, it's important, too, as you bring up here. It's not that, well, something happened and God is so wise, He can bring something good out of it. It was part of the plan. And people will often bring up, what about the worst of atrocities and the most horrible things that have ever happened? The simple fact is that the greatest injustice in the history of the world was the crucifixion of the Son of God, the murder of the Son of God. I mean, that outweighs all other evils that are horizontal from the inhumanity of man to man, all those evils combined. And yet we know in all of the wickedness and evil that went into that was itself predestined to take place by God, not by a bare permission, but it was something God planned to proceed out of the evil of their hearts. So, Henry, what would you like to add to that? Well, I think you pointed to the best example in Scripture in Acts chapter 2, verses 22 and 23. The apostle Peter is preaching the gospel on the day of Pentecost, and here's what he said in the middle of this sermon, verse 22, Men of Israel, hear these words, Jesus of Nazareth a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know." And now verse 23, this Jesus delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God. you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men." And so, here's a verse that teaches these two truths, that the people who did this were responsible. God didn't make them do that. God didn't violate Judas' will. Judas is referred to, for example, in the Gospels, John 17, following the son of perdition. and the one that would fulfill Scripture. It was the plan of God that Judas would betray the Lord Jesus. But Judas freely chose to do that. God didn't violate his will. But Judas carried out the plan of God, and here this verse tells us that the Jews that conspired to go to Pilate and demand that Jesus of Nazareth be crucified, this was the plan of God, and they were responsible. God didn't violate their wills. They freely chose to do that. But it was the plan of God. And God takes the wickedness of men and uses it for his glory. That illustration you mentioned, Brother Jim, about Judo. I like that. That's great. And it's not that God is caught off guard, but that this was the plan of God. And yet God is not the author of evil, and that's what we read in James chapter 1, verses 13 and 14. God does not tempt anyone with evil, and he isn't tempted with evil. Where does evil come from? It comes from people's own evil hearts and desires, and they act on that sinful inclination to do wrong. And God is sovereign even over evil. And you mentioned, Brother Jim, in Genesis chapter 45 and chapter 50 about Joseph and his brothers. Joseph tells his brothers when he reveals himself to them in Genesis 45, God sent me here ahead of you. Put me in this position to preserve your lives. And then in Genesis 50, after their old daddy dies, The brothers are terrified. They think, okay, now he's going to get even with us. And Joseph Ben says, listen, you meant it for evil, but God meant it for good, to preserve life. And that's what we see in the text I just read in Acts 2. Those men who crucified Jesus, they did not intend anything good to come from it. It was pure evil, the most evil act, as you said, Brother Patrick, that could ever be done. The eternal Son of God who had taken on human flesh was lied about, betrayed, and horribly mistreated, falsely put to death. And it was a plan of God. And so the God of the Bible, the true and the living God, he's an amazing God. And he has a plan for history. And he is carrying out that plan. And that is providence. And he does so in a way that does not violate the will of man. He does so in a way that he is not the author of evil. and nothing in this universe happens by chance. Go ahead, Jim. Yeah, I was reading the institutes from the our friend in Geneva this morning, and he was talking about Joseph and how he was able to forgive his brothers. And he pointed out that Joseph had to be meditating throughout the years of suffering on God's sovereignty and plan, because if he had just focused on the wickedness of his brothers, he would have been bitter and not able to forgive them. Exactly. So that's part of the comfort that we need. And he even says that there's nothing more comforting than the providence of God. It's just amazing. We need to meditate on God's providence, especially during trials and disappointments. It's so comforting. Yeah. And if we don't do that, we can become bitter. in a vertical way, like towards God and thinking that, well, now my life's been ruined. Now I'm off the track of God's real plan for me. There's no recovery. Those are lies. That's just not the case at all. I mean, even the hardest providences, the most painful things that we go through, God is simply trying to refine our faith. The plan that He has is to make us more like Christ. I mean, how can we be conformed to the image of Christ if we don't suffer? I mean, He suffered in every way you can suffer, everything that we can go through. I mean, He went through all of it, to the point of being brutally tortured with the most horrendous form of execution ever devised by the twisted, depraved mind of man. And he did that out of love for his people, his friends. And it's an amazing thing to meditate on, for sure. And also the mental agony that he went through in the Garden of Gethsemane. I mean, nobody was laying a finger on him, but he could think about what he was about to face. The mental agony was amazing. I want to share a little story I learned in church history about the life of David Brainerd. I'm sure you guys are familiar with him, the missionary to the Native American Indians. He died when he was only 29 years old. He actually died in Jonathan Edwards' house. He got so sick, he couldn't keep doing missions. But Brainerd was really special. He was a wonderful missionary. while he was at Yale Divinity School. There were some rumblings of revival going on, but one of the rules they put in place, this would be in like the 1730s or 20s, they put in place a rule, you are not allowed to question the conversion of any of the faculty. And apparently during a chapel service when he was a young Divinity student, Some faculty guy prayed this long, pretentious, excessively smarmy prayer, and someone made the comment to Brainerd, what did you think of so-and-so's prayer? And Brainerd mumbles to this guy, that man has no more grace than this chair. And it got back to the faculty, and they kicked him out of school. And he apologized profusely, and he wrote letters to the board, and he begged for forgiveness and just wanted to finish his degree. He was the number one student in his class, and they would not let him back in. And the thing is, historically, had he finished his divinity degree at Yale, he would have ended up taking a little church in New England somewhere, and no one would ever have even heard of the guy. But instead, the only option left to him since he had been kicked out of school was to be a missionary to Native American Indians. And so that's what he went and did with the rest of his life. And he kept that journal, that diary. And Jonathan Edwards got a hold of it when Brainerd, his tuberculosis was so bad that he just couldn't really even walk anymore, and he eventually died there in Edwards' house. Edwards is looking at his journal going, man, this guy's journal is just filled with the glory of God and his sufferings, and Brainerd had depression. I just had all these issues, you know, health problems and depression and struggles. But his passion to win Indians to Christ, Edwards edited and then published The Diary of David Brainerd, and that influenced an entire generation of missions, and it really ignited the modern missionary movement. And Brainerd never knew that. I mean, the guy died. He didn't think anyone would ever read that journal. And yet it all goes back to a stupid comment that this young man made. And people have said, you know what? If he hadn't said that, and hadn't gotten thrown out of school, the entire modern missionary movement might not have started. So isn't that encouraging to you? Even the dumb things I've done actually are part of God's plan. Even the stupid sins I've committed in my life, God will redeem them all. God planned them for His own glory. Is that not an amazing story? I remember hearing that going. That is incredible to me. That is beautiful. Amen. And that doesn't give any of us or anyone else license to do wrong. It's the same kind of thing that we see in Romans chapters 4, 5, and 6, where God's grace is so great. that people would take it and twist it and go, well, if God's grace is magnified, where sin abounds, grace abounds all the more, well, let's just help God out and sin more. And of course, that's not what God would have us do with these precious truths. It is not to use them as an excuse to sin, but these are precious truths to stir us up to worship God, to give ourselves to trust and cling to Jesus and seek to render gospel obedience. to our wonderful savior who purchased us with his precious blood. And, you know, the scripture says that the days that were ordained for me, when as yet there was none of them. In other words, God planned the date where we will depart from this earth. But that doesn't mean we can live recklessly. Exactly. We're still responsible. And violations, like if I go out and play in the traffic, that's sin. And we're required to be careful, to be cautious. Now, not agoraphobic, where we're afraid to go outdoors or anything like that, but we are responsible beings under God. And we need to remember that too. That's such an important point, you guys, both of you are bringing up there. The providence of God, it's a misuse of the doctrine for me to think, okay, well, cool, let me go do a spectacular sin and see how God can redeem it and bring something good out of it. That's pure foolishness. What this does is it comforts us when we do fall, when we do struggle, and it comforts us in our trials. You know, I think about the Heidelberg Catechism has a question, how does the providence of God help me? And it's when things go for me, I can give all the glory to God. And when things go against me, I can know that He has a plan to bring good out of it for me, because all things work together for my good and for God's glory and things like that. So yeah, it is a total misuse of the doctrine when people use the sovereignty of God as a license to be foolish or reckless. So that's a really important pastoral point that we have to deal with, for sure. I've heard people say, well, you know, I believe in election and predestination, so if God's going to save me, He's eventually going to do it. I don't need to go to church. And I think, no. Jonathan Edwards used to tell people, you need to go to church because that's where the means of grace are. That's where the gospel is preached and proclaimed. If you don't go to church, you're definitely going to be lost. And if you do go, there's a chance that God might regenerate you and make you born again. But if you isolate yourself from the Word of God, you're in big trouble. So, okay, let's push on to point number five. And the most wise, righteous, and gracious God doth oftentimes leave for a season his own children to manifold temptations and the corruption of their own hearts, to chastise them for their former sins, or to discover unto them the hidden strength of corruption and deceitfulness of their hearts, that they may be humbled, and to raise them to a more close and constant dependence for their support upon himself, and to make them more watchful against all future occasions of sin, and for sundry other just and holy ends." All right, who wants to take this one? That's a real important point. Henry, you want to take a shot at that one? references the example of Hezekiah. And I think that's a wonderful example to us of someone that God said, all right, I am going to just take my hand of preserving you off for just a moment to let you see that you are kept and held only by my sovereign hand. And we see this overall, just a sweet testimony of a man who had a heart for the Christ. There in the Old Testament is one of the kings of Judah that was overall a good king, a righteous king. And yet, at the end of his life, we read in 2 Chronicles 32, but Hezekiah rendered not again according to the benefit done unto him, for his heart was lifted up, and therefore there was wrath upon him and upon Judah and Jerusalem. Notwithstanding, Hezekiah humbled himself for the pride of his heart, both he and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so that the wrath of the Lord came not upon him in the days of Hezekiah." Then down in verse 31, "'Albeit in the business of the ambassadors of the princes of Babylon, who sent unto him to inquire of the wonder that was done in the land, God left him, to try him, that he might know all that was in his heart. And so God showed Hezekiah, Hezekiah, here's what you are apart from my grace. you will fall flat on your face. And so will I and each one of us, if God doesn't continue to keep us and uphold us by his grace. And sometimes God graciously lets us stumble for a moment just to remind us, just to impress upon us. We stand only by the grace of God. I think about, when my children were learning to ride bicycles. You can use training wheels, but what I would do many times is go along behind them and kind of hold the back of the bicycle and steady while they were riding. And after a while, they would think they were just doing it, but I would still have hold of it. And then from time to time, I would let go. And sometimes when I would let go, they would do okay. And then sometimes they would just fall. And God is the one who is holding on to us as his children. And this section says sometimes God allows us to take a tumble just to impress upon us that we need him, that we stand only by his saving, his keeping. And that's a humbling thing, but it is a sweet thing to be taught of Jesus and kept by him, by his spirit. Yeah, it's amazing how prone we are to pride. Just because, you know, let's say that there was a sin or maybe a group of sins that were a real problem for us, and because of the work of the Lord using the means of grace and our persistence in asking God to give us a hatred of this sin or that sin, there's been a great deal of progress in mortifying that sin. We can actually become puffed up about that. And this paragraph just chills my bones. It really does. Because I just think, you know, he can leave us for a season to show us the depth of corruption that's still in us. You know, I was thinking of the biking illustration you just used. My youngest, who's just turned six, you know, just taught her. She's just now really riding a bike. But it got to where she was afraid I was going to let go. of the bike, but then she got mad that I was still touching it. It was like, I can do it. I can do it. I'm just your biking illustration. There's so many things they're like, she's wanting me to let go. And I'm thinking, honey, if I let go, you're gonna fall. And so there's, there's a lot of illustrations that are applicable. You know, we think we're riding the bike. And no, no, no, no, no. God's holding it. Go ahead, Jim. I've got a good quote here from Geneva. Deeply rooted in all of us is an arrogance which persuades us that we are righteous, truthful, wise, and holy. It's deeply rooted in all of us, he says, that we are righteous, truthful, wise, and holy, and we're none of that without his grace. Amen. And his continued keeping us and guiding us, and it's amazing. The other passage, the confession, makes reference to, well, there are two more we'll just mention quickly. Deuteronomy chapter eight, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord. And in Deuteronomy eight, the Lord recounts to his people, listen, I'll let you get hungry and then fed you. I took care of you, but the Lord showed them over and over and over that it was his provision, it was his presence, his saving power that was their hope and their life. We do pray that God would have mercy on us and keep us. I was riding with a dear godly man one time, who was a very dear Christian man, and we were riding over his farm. He farmed thousands of acres, and we were praying. together as he was driving in his pickup truck. And he prayed about two things that just struck me. First of all, he prayed, Lord, I pray that you would make me as prosperous as I can be and still be holy. And that just struck me. I thought, wow, you know? Yeah, that's the way we ought to be thinking. We ought to be praying, Lord. You know where that line is, that if you were to give me this blessing or this ease, that I would just, it would go to my head like the children of Israel, and I'd get fat and sassy and think that I didn't need God anymore. And that's what Deuteronomy 8 is teaching us. And it's not that God ever wants to give hardship to his children. But the Lord is willing to teach us and spank us and chasten us so that we will love Jesus and be trusting in him and close to the living God. And that's a very, very important thing. The other reference that we see here is Luke 22. Simon Peter, evidently he was a big old burly man. He was the one that runs into the tomb. John had gotten there first, but he was a little timid, but not old Peter. And the night before Jesus went to the cross, the disciples were all saying, oh yeah, Jesus, we're going to stand with you. We won't ever desert you. And Peter, he says, well, Jesus, all these others may desert you, but not Peter. And in that context of that conversation, of course, the Lord Jesus says, Peter, Simon, Simon, Satan has demanded permission to sift you like wheat. but I have prayed for you that your faith fail not. And when you have turned again, strengthen your brothers." And so here we see the sovereignty of God. And the Lord did take his hand, not completely ever off of any of his children, but just enough so that Peter would fall flat on his face. Peter denied the Lord Jesus, but the Lord was praying for Peter. The Lord sovereignly is at work, not only in Peter's life, but our lives. And so if we stumble, what should we do? Not despair like Judas did, who didn't have repentance. Repentance always involves us hating our sin because it's against God, the sovereign God, the holy God. And we turn from that sin, we turn to Jesus, and we say, Lord, teach me from this to hate my own sin more and to love you, Lord Jesus. And I give myself anew to you. That's how God wants us to live. He doesn't want us to despair. He doesn't want us to wallow in pity. But he does want us to grieve over our sin, turning from it, and he turns our grief into joy when we trust in Jesus. And it's a sovereign God who is at work, even using our weakness at times to revive our hearts, to trust afresh in the Savior, and to be even closer to our good, great, holy God. Yeah, I've preached on that passage where Jesus has that discussion with Peter, you know, Satan has asked to sift you like wheat, and when I preached on it, I think Peter, I would have almost expected Peter to say, why didn't you just tell him no? Or I think he was probably hoping you didn't tell him, no, you're going to let him do it. You're going to let him sip me like, like wheat. Um, but he's like, yeah, but I've prayed for you. You're going to, you're going to fall, but it's not going to be, um, to your everlasting shame. Um, so yeah. And it just along the lines of what you guys have both been talking about. the pride and the ease with which our hearts can swell when we're doing okay and we're doing better in our Christian walk or putting sin to death better. I read recently an illustration of that. Pride is a sin that has the most efficient metabolism of any sin in our lives. It's like an alligator or a crocodile. It can go up and eat a chicken and go to sleep at the bottom of the lake for a month. You know, we get one compliment, one little thing that someone says, one vision of how great we are, and it just swells us with pride. And it's amazing how efficient the metabolism of that sin really is. But, you know, pride is something that is a great vice. God opposes it. One of the remedies that God has given to us is this matter of prayer. And the other thing that my friend prayed that day was, he said, Lord, I pray that you'd bless my fertilizer to work. And I mean, after the prayer was over, I turned to my friend and I said, you know, I've never heard anybody pray for their fertilizer. And so he began describing to me how God had made the cotton plant and that everything had to work just right. The right temperature of the root system had to be developed just to the certain stage for the fertilizer to be able. It had to rain. There had to be just the right amount of moisture. And when you begin to look at all of those things, he said, so you see, it doesn't just happen. He said, there's a sovereign God who designed all of this. And he said, the other thing you need to remember, Henry, he said, if you had paid $1.6 million for your fertilizer, you'd probably be motivated to pray that it would work too. God wants us to be humbling ourselves before this sovereign God, praying, acknowledging that God is God. And that's a Sproul quote that you had at the beginning, Patrick. There is not a stray molecule in the universe. That's right. And we have the privilege of belonging to this God who is the God of providence. What a comfort that is and how it fires us up to want to live for the glory of God. Amen. Amen. You know, we need to, uh, you know, we might, uh, be much more prone, like, uh, suppose some ungodly lust came up in our hearts as it does sometimes. And we immediately start praying for the Lord's help. But how about pride? You know, we're much more susceptible. Oh yeah. Yeah. You know, to agree with whatever we're hearing and really we need to start praying the second that crops up. And I want you to listen to something, here's some cause and effect. Henry was pointing to that 2 Chronicles 32, listen, but Hezekiah did not repay according to the favor shown him for his heart was lifted up, therefore wrath was looming over him. You see the cause and effect there. So anytime we're starting to get puffed up, we should be aware that if we give into it, the looming over us is God's wrath. He's gonna do this strange work, as it's called. You know, it's like my wife has been gentle and loving for our 44 years, but I know there's some things that if I were to do them, it would be wrath, you know? Yeah. Hey, you're not alone, my man. I know, I know. It's knowing human nature, you know? Yeah, that's very true. We start getting swelled up with pride. You better put your head on the swivel, because there's a divine two-by-four heading your way. Amen. Because, yeah, part of the, I mean, the gospel of God's free grace intrinsically insults us and humbles us. Remember Martin Lloyd-Jones saying, to be a Christian, you have to be insulted. Because God tells you, you are so far from being able to make even the first move towards Me that I have to unconditionally elect you from before the foundation of the world, and I have to become incarnate and do absolutely everything for you, because you are that helpless. And your righteousness, that great Calvin quote, we intrinsically, we fancy ourselves to be a little short of demigods. You know, we think we're wise and everything else until we're brought by the divine hand to contemplate the face of God. And then that which we once thought was so great will stink in its filth to us. I'm paraphrasing Calvin, but he's right. Our knowledge of self comes from our knowledge of this providentially sovereign, holy, righteous God who created us. Okay, I think we're about at the hour point. Okay, that's good. So we got through point five. That's actually farther than I thought we would get, because point five is just such an important pastoral point. And, you know, it's amazing how much longer the chapter on Providence is than Creation. Creation is only two points. Providence is seven. Because providence is what we kind of live under now that God has created. He sustains and then governs. So that's kind of, that's where we live in the plan of God. But are you both thankful? I know I'm very thankful in God's plan to be a vessel of mercy, to glorify His grace. Because He could have left all three of us in our sins, and justly so, to get what we deserve. And so, yeah, when you really know and understand that, it makes trials a lot easier to deal with, you know, because the greatest of trials would be to be left in our sins. All right, well, let me say a closing prayer, and then we'll sign off here. Let's pray, brothers. Our gracious and sovereign God, we love you and are so thankful that you loved us with an everlasting and eternal love. And we thank you for the people that came into our lives, who taught us the gospel, whether it was parents, elders, pastors, friends. Neighbors, people that prayed for us, witnessed to us, we are so thankful to you for granting to us repentance unto life and faith in the Lord Jesus. And we pray that you would help us to represent you well in this world and to glorify your name in our callings and our work. And we are truly grateful to know that you're sovereign over all that comes to pass. May we truly believe that, even in our darkest and toughest of times, and give us a spirit of humility that we might not ever need to have your chastening hand to humble us or to show us the depths of our own sin and our own hearts. But Lord, whatever Your will is, may it be done, and may we rejoice in it no matter what it might be. But we are so thankful for that promise of eternal life that we have in Christ that can never be shaken, that can never be diminished, and can never be broken by any earthly trial. And we pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Next Wednesday at 10? Yeah, let's do it. Let's do it. But we're signing off. Thank you all for watching or for listening.