Now therefore, our
God,
We thank You
And praise Your
glorious name.
But who am I, and who
Are my people, that
we
Should be able to
offer
So willingly as this?
For all things come
from You,
And of Your own we
have give You.
For we are aliens and
pilgrims
Before You. As were
all our fathers;
Our days on earth are
as a shadow,
And without hope.
1Chronicles 29:13-15
This is a
prayer of King David just before his death and he acknowledges that our God is
to be praised for all things come from Him. We are just pilgrims in this world.
Our days are numbered and we are without hope. Is King David saying that we
cannot have hope? No, what he is saying that as a people we have no hope unless
we hope in God who is everything, in control of everything, to those who fear
Him: “Behold, the eye of the LORD is on those who fear Him, on those who
hope in His mercy, to deliver their soul from death, and to keep them
alive in famine. Our soul waits for the LORD; He is our help and our shield.
For our heart shall rejoice in Him, because we have trusted in His holy name.
Let your mercy, O LORD, be upon us, just as we hope in You” (Psalm 33:18-22). Where
have you placed your hope? King David in his speech before the people of Israel
spoke that God’s commandments, His testimonies, and precepts and statutes were
pass on to his son Solomon; this is history being handed down so that Solomon,
and the people of Israel would live by the words of God and not forget that
they are the people chosen by God. This is true of us for in the New Covenant
we are grafted in to be a people chosen by God, a new Israel, people that are
of the seed of Abraham, children of the promise: “What if God, wanting to
show His wrath and to make power known, endured with much longsuffering the
vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, and that He might make known the
riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy, which He had prepared beforehand
for glory, even us whom He called, not of the Jews only, but also of he
Gentiles? As He says also in Hosea: ‘I will call them My people, who were not
My people, and her beloved, who was not beloved. And it shall come to pass in
the place where it was said to them, ‘You are not My people,’ there they
shall e called sons of the living God.”
(Romans 9:22-26).
The unfolding
of history operates through the will of man in second causes. We must
never declare that they were without the will of God who had ordained all
things, to decree all things, to occur and by His Providence caused all things
to work for His glory. We who are the ones chosen beforehand by God who may
then see the glory of God in all things and give to Him proper worship. Before
I enter into a discussion and examination of history we must understand this
most important fact: God is in charge of history; history exists by the will of
God, and through history He will unfold His purposes; therefore to truly
understand history is to come to know Him, and what He desires of His children.
The divines of the Westminster Confession of Faith in chapter 5; Of Providence,
wrote these words, it is a bit long but more than worth taking the time to read
it and I will give the Scriptures used to underscore what they wrote:
1. God
the great Creator of all things doth uphold, (Heb. 1:3) direct, dispose, and
govern all creatures, actins, and things, (Dan. 4:34,35; Ps. 135:6; Acts
17:25,26,28) from the greatest even to the least (Matt. 10:29,31), by His most
wise and holy providence (Prov. 15:3; Ps.145:17), according to His infallible
foreknowledge (Acts 15:18; Ps. 94:8,9,10,11) and the free and immutable counsel
of His own will (Eph. 1:11; Ps. 33:10,11), to the praise of the glory of His
wisdom, power, justice, goodness, and mercy (Is. 63:14; Eph. 3:10; Rom. 9:17;
Gen. 45:7; Ps. 145:7). 2. Although, in relation to the foreknowledge and decree
of God, the first Cause, all things come to pass immutably, and infallibly
(Acts 2:23): yet, by the same providence, He ordereth them to fall out,
according to the nature of second causes, either necessarily, freely, or
contingently (Gen. 8:22; Jer. 31:35; Ex. 21:13; Deut. 19:5; 1Kings 22:28,34;
Isa. 10:6,7). 3: God in his ordinary providence maketh use of means (Acts
27:31,44; Isa. 55:10,11; Hos. 2:21), yet is free to work without (Hos. 1:7;
Matt. 4:4; Job 34:20) above (Rom. 4:19,20,21), and against them, at His
pleasure (2Kings 6:6; Dan. 3:27) 4. The almighty power, unsearcheable 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 (Rom. 11:32,33,34; 2Sam. 24:1; 1Chron. 21:1; 1Kings 22:22,23; 1Chron.
10:4,13,14; 2 Sam. 16:10; Acts 2:23; 4:27,28), and that not by a bare
permission (Acts 14:16), but such as hath joined with it a most wise and
powerful bounding (Ps. 76:10; 2Kings 19:28), and otherwise ordering and
governing of them, in a manifold dispensation, to His how holy ends (Gen.
50:20; Isa. 10:6,7,12); yet so, as the sinfulness thereof proceedeth only form
the creature, and not from God, who, being most holy and righteous, neither is,
or can be, the author or approver of sin (James 1:13,14,17; 1John 2:16; Ps.
50:21). 5. The most wise, righteous, and gracious God doth oftentimes leave for
a season His own children to manifold temptations, and the corruption fo their
own hears, 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 (2Chron. 32:25,26,31; 2Sam. 24:1); 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 (2Cor. 12:7,8,9; Os. 73; 77:1-12; Mark 14:66-72; John
21:15,16,17). 6. As for those wicked and ungodly men whom God, as a righteous
Judge, for former sins doth blind and harden (Rom. 1:24,26,28; 11:7,8), from
them He not only witholdeth His grace, whereby they might have been enlightened
in their understanding, and wrought upon in the hearts (Deukt. 29:4); but sometimes
also withdraweth the gifts which they had (Matt. 13:12; 25:29), and exposeth
them to such objects as their corruption makes occasions of sin (Deut. 2:30;
2Kings 8:12,13) and, withal, gives them over to their own lusts, the
temptations of the world, and the power of Satan (Ps. 81:11,12; 2Thess.
2:10,11,12: whereby it comes to pass that they harden themselves, even under those means which God useth for the
softening of others (Exod. 7:3; 8:15,32; 2Cor. 2:15,16; Isa. 8:14; 1Pet. 2:7,8;
Isa. 6:9,10; Acts 28:26,27). 7. As the providence of God doth in general reach
to all creatures, so after a most special manner it taketh care of His Church,
and disposeth all things to the good thereof (1Tim. 4:10; Amos 9:8,9; Rom.
8:28; Isa. 43:3,4,5,14).
I know this was long but important and if you do the
Bible study of those verses presented you will gain great understanding that
will underpin your study of history.
This weekend as you prepare for the Sabbath, spend the time, we are
after-all ambassadors of Christ, therefore we do the things we should do, study
to show ourselves approved by God and to be ready to give a defense for our
faith to anyone who asks: (1Pet. 3:15).
May God bless you as you delve into
His word.
And because you are sons,
God has
sent forth
the Spirit of His Son into
your
hearts, crying out,
“Abba, Father!”
Therefore
you are no
Longer a slave but a son,
And if a
son, then
An heir of God through Christ.
Galatians 4:6-7
Standfast in the liberty of God
Richard L. Crumb
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