Purpose of God's Creation

It is always a joy to be here. For one thing, I missed this pulpit. It's like my favorite ever. You know, as we look at our topic for this weekend, providence, I think it's important that we that we define the term and uh, this is something that for me has been even more meaningful as of late. I was able to be here shortly after going through all of you know, my recent escapades and heart failure and heart surgery and all of these other things. And as I've told some of you know, when when we got to the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Florida, they didn't of course didn't tell me this at the time, but after we got into all of this and began to be treated, my main cardiologist made it clear that we got there within an hour or two of my death. And our normal response to that is, well, that was providential. Now it was, but not in the way that we usually mean it. You see, for most Christians, we think you got there within a couple hours of death, you didn't die, therefore, that was providential. But if I would have died, unless you understand that, that would have been providential as well. You don't understand providence, you see, for most of us, we use the word providence as a substitute for luck. That was providential. We mean it could have been bad, but it ended up being good. Therefore it was providential. That is not what providence means. And so over the course of this weekend, we're going to look at this word. I'm going to define it for you this evening. But before I define that for you, I'm gonna leave you hanging right. Some of you are like, well, if that's not what it means, what does it mean? Then I'm getting ready to tell you something else. I know, you know, I really want you to tell me what I will. But this conference is built around our confession, and we live in a post confessional age, not an anti confessional age, but a post confessional age. Explain what I mean by that. There was a time in the not too distant past when you could have accurately described our culture, and really most cultures, as anti confessional, and people were anti confessional for one of two main reasons. One was liberalism. Liberalism looked at the Confession and basically said, we reject those doctrines. Liberalism would look at the Confession and what the Confession said about the Eransior scripture and would say we reject the Inerancior scripture, would look at what the Confession says about creation and say we reject the idea of special creation. So liberalism was anti confessional. It looked at the confession and it said, no, we disagree. The second major reason that people were anti confessional was experientialism. Experientialism looked at confessions and said, we don't necessarily disagree, but we don't want to put God in a box. We don't want to be held to this confession. We don't want be held to an idea of a confession. We don't want to put God in a box. We don't want to say what God can't do or can't be, or something of that sort. But it was based on experientialism. It was based on the idea of immediacy. It was based on the idea of continued revelation. It was based on the idea that we're still waiting on God to give us more. It was based on the idea that the scriptures essentially were not sufficient. So those are the two main streams as I see it, of anti confessionalism. But what we're experiencing now is post confessionalism, and what I mean by that is anti confessionalism. Whether it was from liberalism or experientialism, at least it acknowledged the confession, and it knew what was in the confessions. It just didn't agree with the confessions. Now we're in an era where most Christians don't know what a confession is. You can't say a man, you ought to say ouch. I get emails from a lot of people who've read for example, they've they've read my book Family Shepherds, and I talk about confessions and catechisms, and I get a lot of emails and questions from people about confessions and catechisms. And you know, what's a good catechism? That's one of the questions that I get, Like, what's a good catechism? Well, a good catechism is a catechism that teaches your confession, because catechisms were designed to teach confessions in bite sized pieces. And people go, oh, okay, what's a good confession? See, that's post confessionalism. We don't we don't eat. We're so far removed from confessionalism that that they that they don't even occupy a real space in our understanding. So now in this era. Here we are in a confessional church having a confessional conference, recognizing that many of you may be post confessional, and that's okay, It is fine if you came here unconfessional, just don't leave that way. So our confessions are really our way of communicating what we believe in a very succinct way. And a lot of people say, you know, they want to say, well, yeah, my confession is the Bible. Great Bible's huge, and my confession is the Bible. So Mormons Jehovah's witnesses they both say I agree with that, and he said, well, no, no, no, now hold on, not the Bible as they understand it. But when I say Bible, what I mean is guess what you just became confessional because now you're explaining what you mean when you say Bible. Right, no creeds and confession no creed. But Christ. Again, Mormons and Jehovah's witnesses could say amen to that, and immediately you start saying, well, when I say Christ, what I mean is guess what you just got confessional, because now you're explaining what you mean when you say Christ. That's all confession is. It's explaining what we mean when we say we believe ABC and X, y Z, they do not supersede the scriptures. The confessions start with here's what we mean by the scriptures. Here's the authority of the scriptures. Well, what we're looking at in this weekend is the chapter on providence, and my responsibility is to look at the first paragraph tonight, Chapter five on Divine Providence, Second London Baptist Confession, sixteen eighty nine. It's really sixteen seventy seven, sixteen eighty nine, but sixteen eighty nine of divine providence, and I think you have they have it there. First paragraph, God, the creator of all things, in his infinite power and wisdom, doth uphold, direct, depose, and govern all creatures and things, from the greatest even to the least, by his most wise and holy providence, to the end for which they were created, according unto his infallible foreknowledge and the free and immutable counsel of his own will, to the praise of the glory of His wisdom, power, justice, infinite goodness and mercy. So the first paragraph talks about the end for which things were created. Let me give you a couple of succinct definitions. When we're talking about providence, John Gill says, providence is the external work of God by which all the creatures God has made are preserved, governed, guided, and directed. He goes on, the word itself is never used in scripture, yet the thing itself or what is meant by it, is fully declared and clearly expressed as that God upholds all things by his power, governs the world by his wisdom, looks down upon the earth, takes notice and care of all his creatures in it, and makes provision for them, and guides and directs them to answer the ends for which they were made. Which is the sum and substance of providence. You one more from Wayne Grudam. Why and Grudam says we may define God's providence as follows. God is continually involved with all created things in such a way that he won keeps them existing and maintaining the properties with which he created them. That's number one. God keeps all things existing, and he keeps them maintaining the properties with which he created them. By the way, this is why we can do science because of providence, because we can count on things being maintained in their properties. You can have a watch. Why can you have a watch. Because the heavenly bodies all move the way they're supposed to move. They're maintained, they stay that way. We know that water freezes at the freezing point right thirty two degrees fahrenheit. Why do we know that Providence, God sees to it that the things that he created maintain their properties. We don't live in a random universe. It is ordered and it is maintained. That's providence. So number one keeps them existing and maintaining their properties with which they are. He created them. Two, He cooperates with created things in every action, directing them or directing their distinct properties to cause them to act as they do. So, he cooperates with created things in every action, directing their distinctive properties to cause them to act as they do. He gives them their properties, sees to it that they maintain their properties, and then he he directs them. He cooperates with them. So it's not not deism. It's not the divine watchmaker you know, who just says, okay, fine, here are your properties, Go be free, find yourself. No, he cooperates with them, cooperates with them, and then finally he directs them to fulfill his purposes. He directs them to fulfill his purposes. Creates things, gives them their properties, sees that they maintain their properties, cooperates with these created things in every action, directing them to cause them to act as they do, and he directs them to fulfill his purpose. That's what we mean when we say providence. Well, if there's one passage of scripture to which I would turn to look at this question of providence, and there are many, it would be an Actionapter seventeen. So turn with me there and acts Chapter seventeen. Acts Chapter seventeen. Beginning in verse twenty two, we see that Paul and Silas in verse ten were sent to Maria. Then in verse sixteen we find or in verse fifteen we see Paul being sent over there Athens. Verse sixteen we find them in Athens waiting for the brethren. And then we had this interaction where we find Paul at Mars Hill for the Areopogus. He's been invited in. He's been preaching in the marketplace, and he's been invited to come and speak in this environment, in this setting where people do nothing but hear new things. And so Paul is there and he preaches a sermon. So in verse twenty two, let's pick it up there. So Paul, standing in the midst of the Areopogus, said, men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious. For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription to the unknown God. What therefore you worship has unknown. This I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and Earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since He himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything, and he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet He is actually not far from each one of us, for in Him we live and move and have our being, as even some of our own poets have said, for we are indeed His offspring being. Then God's offspring, we ought not to think the Divine Being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man. The times of ignorance God overlooked, But now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed. And of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead. Now, when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked, but others said, we will hear you again about this. So Paul went out from their midst, but some men joined him and believed, among whom also were Dionysius, the Ariapagide, and a woman named Dameris, and others with them. Amen. So this text gives us a number of things. Acts Chapter seventeen is an amazing portion of scripture. I love the fact that you see Paul in a number of settings, and you see how he interacted differently with different people. We see him in Thessalonika and he is in the synagogue basically debating and expounding on the scriptures. He's exegitating the text. Then later on we see him here in Athens and on Mars Hill. He preaches a very different sermon because he has a very different audience. This is not a Jewish audience, This is a Greek audience. This is not an audience that knows the scriptures like his previous audience. So here he proclaims the Gospel in a different way. He proclaims the meta narrative of the Gospel, and he really gives them creation, fall, redemption, and consummation in preaching the gospel. Touching on all of those aspects. But at the core of his sermon is a question of providence, and we see that in several ways. First of all, we see that God's providence is rooted in his sovereignty. Now we often confuse these two. Sovereignty is about God's authority. God's authority providence is the way he exercises He is authority. Verse twenty four, The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man. Those two statements there, the God who made the world and everything in it, and him being the Lord of heaven and earth. The Westminster Larger Catechism asks in question twelve, what are the decrees of God? The answer is the decrees or God's decrees are the wise free and holy acts of the counsel of his will, whereby from all eternity he has for his own glory, unchangeably fore ordained whatsoever comes to pass in time, especially concerning angels and men verse or question fourteen. How does God execute his decrees? This is important. God executes his decrees in the works of creation and providence, according to his infallible foreknowledge and the free and immutable counsel of his own will. God has decreed whatsoever comes to pass. He is the sovereign God of the universe. He sits enthroned in the heavens, and he does whatever pleases him. And he has decreed all things that come to pass. Nothing happens by accident. There is no such thing. God never slumbers nor sleeps. He is never caught by surprise. He is never early, he is never late. He is always right on time. And he executes his decrees in his works of creation and providence. And what do we have here in verse twenty four the God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, we have creation, and we have providence. We have sovereignty and providence there because He's Lord of heaven and earth, which means, on the one hand, there is the title he is Lord, he is the sovereign ruler of heaven and earth. But also there is understood in this idea of him being Lord, the fact that he executes his will as Lord. And we see this as the text bears itself out the God who made the world and everything in it Job twelve, verses seven through ten. But ask the beasts and they will teach you. The birds of the heavens and they will tell you, or the bushes of the earth, and they will teach you you. And the fish of the sea will declare to you, who among all these does not know that the hand of the Lord has done this. In his hand is the life of every living thing, and the breath of all mankind. He is the Lord, the Creator, the sovereign ruler of all things, the Lord of heaven and Earth. Isaiah forty six eight through eleven. Remember this and stand firm. Recall it to mind, you transgressors, remember the former things of old. For I am God, and there is no other. I am God, and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things not yet done, saying my counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose, calling a bird of prey from the east, the man of my counsel from a far country. I have spoken, and I will bring it to pass. I have purposed, and I will do it. The creator of heaven and earth, the God who made the world and everything in it, is the Lord of heaven and Earth, and he exercises is providence Isaiah fourteen twenty four. The Lord of Host has sworn, as I have planned, so shall it be, And as I have purposed, so shall it stand his sovereignty. Finally, Ephesians one to eleven. In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of his will. His providence is rooted in his sovereignty. He is the creator of all things, and he executes his sovereignty his rule over all things, through his works of providence. Secondly, God's providence extends to all creatures and things. That's made clear from the same verse. The God who made the world and everything in it, being a Lord of heaven and earth, it's all encompassing, and therefore his providence extends to all creatures and all things, all creatures of our God and King, Amen. John one one through five. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him, not anything was made. And him was life, and the life was the light of man. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overtaken it. Apart from him, nothing was made that has been made, everything, every creature, all of creation. Now, there are times when we look at things and we may have the tendency or the inclination to say, I just don't think God made that. You just might see something just like the you know, like a like a slug, and you just go, I mean that one, that one just must have snuck in, right, I mean that just there are some creatures, you know, you look on the internet and you see this with the picture of that, like the hairless cat thing, and you just go, I'm just I'm just not gonna blame my God for that. You know, all things, from the greatest to the smallest, all things, there's not one random or unnecessary molecule in all the worlds, and there's nothing that exists outside of God's creation and providence. It extends to all creatures and all things. Revelation four eleven. We hear the Great Host of Heaven crying. Worthy are you, o, Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power. For you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created all things. God's providence extends to all creatures and all things. By the way, if I could just put a pin here, and I've told you this before, one of the most difficult things that we've had to do over the last six years. And we left here six years ago to go help start the African Christian University, and so many people it's, oh, yeah, you went to Africa to start a Bible college. No, actually, no, I didn't. Went to Zambia to help start a classical Christian liberal arts university offering degrees in agriculture, business education, fine arts, theology. Lord Willing, we're getting ready to add chemistry and biology. We'll be doing some engineering and some medicine. Why because God's providence extends to all creatures and all things. And for far too long, Christians who are anti confessional have been anti intellectual, and we want to think that we come to church and on Sunday morning we do the important stuff, the stuff that God's concerned about, the stuff that matters to God. But then on Monday we go to the university or we go to our job, and we do the things that are outside of God's providence or outside of the council of his will. And we believe that He has very specific and important things to say over here about the way that we govern the church, but nothing to say over here about the way that we govern society. No, God's providence extends to all creatures and all things. Everything that we do, whatever our hands find to do, we do it to the glory of God. It matters. It matters how you do science, It matters to God. How you do medicine, It matters to God. How you do engineering, It matters to God. How you do architecture, it matters to God. How you do parenting, it matters to God. How you view esthetics, it matters to God. Every area and aspect of life, it matters to God. Thirdly, God's providence flows from his assiety or his self existence Trus twenty five. Nor is he served by human hands as though he needed anything, since He himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. God needs nothing. He is God all by himself. He has no needs. You know. One of the things that there's some of those things just make us cringe, right theologically, you know. And one of the things that is make me cringe is when we when we talk to little children, and children ask a lot of questions, right, and and and when we tell the little children that you know, God, for example, made the world, or he made man because he was because he was lonely. No. No, only people who are inadequate and have needs are lonely. God's not lonely. In fact, not only is God, by virtue of being God not lonely, but the triume God, the Father's Son and Holy Spirit, has existed as the triun God throughout all eternity and within the Trinity, was not lonely. Amen, somebody, God needs nothing. God does not need you. I remember in my hospital bed it was one of those moments where, you know, I was so proud of my wife, and then a moment later just worried. Richard was on the phone with someone and they were trying to be you know, encouraging to her and and basically saying, hey, listen, he's he's he's gonna he's gonna make it. He's gonna be okay because you know, God's got work for him to do. And I remember my wife on the phone saying, you know, I appreciate that, but God is no man's debtor, and he doesn't need my husband. I'm praying that he spares my husband, but if he does, it won't because he needs him. And I was like, look at you, girl, but I'm not sure. I don't feel about that, like, and she got out the phone and I was like, but but you need me right like I I mean long you know your lungs the theology is straight over there and they're just right here. We're like you you need me right? Yes? Yes, God needs nothing. God doesn't need you, he doesn't need me, and he's going to prove it one day because we're going to die. Somebody's going to get all our stuff and the world's going to keep on spinning. It won't even slow down to acknowledge your loss. God needs nothing. He's God all by himself Romans eleven thirty six for from him and through him and to Him, Are all things to Him be glory forever. I'm in Deuteronomy four thirty nine. Know therefore today and lay it to your heart that the Lord is God in heaven above and on earth beneath. There is no other Deuteronomy thirty two thirty nine. See now that I even I am He, and there is no God besides me. I killed, and I make alive. I wound and I heal, and there is none that can deliver out of my hand, as they of forty four twenty four. Thus says the Lord, your redeemer, who formed you from the wound. I am the Lord who made all things, who alone stretched out the heavens, who spread out the earth by my self. God is God all by himself. He is self existent, and he needs nothing Job forty one eleven. Who has first given to me that I should repay him. Whatever is under the whole heaven is mine. God owes you nothing, and he needs nothing from you. Psalm fifty ten through twelve. For every beast of the field is mine, the cattle on a thousand hill. I know all the birds of the hills, and all that moves in the field is mine. If I were hungry, I would not tell you, for the world and its fruits are mine. I love that God says if I was hungry, and I wouldn't be hungry, but if I was, I wouldn't tell you, because the day God needs something from you is the day that God is not God. We also know that God's providence applies uniquely to man, and this is something that's important to say. In this day of radical out of control environmentalism and earth worship and creature worship, man is being presented as somehow unnecessary and intruder like there's nature and in this and in this man like like, on the one hand, we're not a part of nature. We're not natural like we're a blight on the world. Verse twenty six, Verses twenty six through twenty eight, and Acts seventeen. And He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined the allotted periods of their boundaries. Listen to the providence here, listen, listen to the Listen to the intentionality first God made second God determine the allotted periods and boundaries of their dwelling places, that they should seek God and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet He is actually not far from each one of us. In him, we live and move and have our being, as even some of your own prophets have said, For we are indeed His offspring. Man is the crowning glory of the creation of God. He says, let us make man in our image and in our likeness. And he makes man male and female after the image and likeness of God himself. Man is the crowning glory of the creation of God. God did not make the stars to seek after him. God did not make the birds of the air or the fish of the sea to seek after him to have relationship with him. God did not make the beasts of the fields to seek after him, to have relationship with him. Man is the only thing in creation that God has made this way, and so his providence is applied uniquely to man, and even more uniquely to the Church. Man matters more to God than do other things. And again, in this era in which we live, it almost seems uncomfortable to say that that man matters more to God. If you have to choose between man and the habitat of some endangered field mouse, take a picture of the mouse, put it in a museum. Do everything we can to help him make it, but he doesn't come first famous passage in Luke chapter twelve, beginning in verse twenty two, he said to his disciples, Therefore, I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat, nor about your body. What you will put on for life is more than food, and the body more than clothing. Consider the ravens. They neither sow nor reap. They have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. And how much and of how much more value are you than the birds, right in the face of environmentalism right there? And which of you, by being anxious, can add a single hour to his span of life? If then you are not able to do as small a thing as that, why are you anxious about the rest? Consider the lilies, how they grow? They neither toil nor spin. Yet I tell you even Solomon, in all his glory, was not a raid like one of these. But if God clothed the grass, which is alive in the field today but tomorrow thrown into the oven, how much more will He clothe you? Oh, you a little faith, You're worth more in fact in God's providence. All of the other things that he made, he gave us dominion over. They're for us. History is the story of God's dealing with man. I love this quote from Benjamin Franklin. The longer I live, the more convincing proof I see of this truth that God governs in the affairs of man. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without his aid? Job twelve twenty three to twenty five. He makes nations great, and he destroys them. He enlarges nations and he leads them away. He takes away understanding from the chiefs of the people of the earth and makes them wander in a trackless waste. They grope in the dark without light, and he makes them stagger like a drunken man. I could make a comment there about modern political situations, but some connections just don't even need to be made. Finally, the end of God's providence is his glory and redemption. The end of God's providence is his glory and redemption. And not only is he going to redeem Man, He's going to redeem the rest of creation as well. Amen New heavens new Earth, beginning of verse twenty nine. Being then God's offspring, we ought not to think that the Divine Being is like gold or silver or stone, and image formed by the art or imagination of man. The times of ignorance God overlooked, But now he commands all people everywhere to repent. First, he commands why, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge. He commands. He fixed he will judge the world with righteousness by a man whom he has appointed. And of this he has given assurance by raising him from the dead. God did these things in his providence. He did these things. And notice that there is past, present, and future here because God, in his providence governs all things. All things that have happened have happened because of God's providence. All things that are happening are happening because of God's providence. All things that will come to pass will come to pass because of God's providence. And then I love how the text ends there in that last section, there's a there's a word here about the way that we view redemption, really the way we do evangelism and missions verse thirty two. Now, when they heard of the resurrection of the dead. Some mocked, but others said, we will hear you again about this. So Paul went out from their midst Some men joined him and believed, among whom were Dionysius, Theoryopachite, and a woman named do Maurice, and others with them. Some believed, some didn't. What determined who believed in who didn't Providence Providence. Twins raised in the same home by the same parents, go to the same church, hear the same sermon, one gloriously converted the other. Note what was the difference? Providence Providence Ephesians two six through seven says we're raised up with him and seated with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come He might show the immeasurable riches of his grace and kindness towards us. In Christ Jesus. Providentially, God saves some in order to point to the riches of his grace and his mercy Romans nine, twenty two to twenty three. What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory. Providence Providence. Providence had not just the Christian version of luck. Providence doesn't mean that something turned out better than it could have. Providence refers to the means and the ways by which and through which the sovereign creator of the universe governs all things according to the counsel of his will and to the praise of his glorious grace. This is providence. I'm grateful for God's providence that allowed me to live. Amen. However, I know this, I didn't look today. I'm meant to check today, but I didn't look today. But the last time I checked, the death rate was still one per person, which means this time, in God's providence, I didn't die. But there will come a time where, in God's providence I will die, and my death will be as providential at my non death, because providence is not about you or me, but about God and his glory and the way that He creates us for his glory, cooperates with us for his glory, and causes us to fulfill his purposes for his glory and Ultimately, we see that in the redemption of God's elect, that God sends forth his son to die for sinners. That God sends forth his son, and in his providence, Christ takes on the sins of his people. He lives a life that we could not live, and dies of death that we could not die, in order to pay a price that we could not pay. And he defeats death, hell, and the grave, who rises again on the third day and is available to all who will come to him through repentance and faith. Providence brought Christ into the world. Providence brought Christ to the cross. Providence raised Christ from the dead was in an accident, and Providence brings Christ to you. May God grant you grace that in its providence you not only hear, but you heed and respond.