All People, But Especially Holy People, Are
A Special Object Of God’s Providence.
God sees our suffering and distress, and He
tenderly provides what He knows we need, even when we fail to understand what
we need. Christians can persevere, knowing the Lord will provide His mercies as
He has assured us in the promises of His covenant. This is the comfort of God’s
providence.
We may take comfort in knowing that God is
good, holy, wise, and powerful and that He preserves and governs all things by His
providence. The justice and righteousness of God are the greatest comforts
given to good people since the evangelical dispensation, for the Lord can no
more deny His righteousness than He can deny Himself. We can take comfort in
acknowledging and worshiping God, knowing He is constantly governing the world
and leaving nothing to the capriciousness of what many call fortune or chance.
What satisfaction can there be for any clear-headed
person who lives in a world deserted by its Creator? Wisdom without providence
would drive anyone mad; the only advantage would be to an ignorant, senseless
fool. Could there be any worse news than “Go ahead and be as religious as you
will, but no eye above takes any notice of it”? Indeed, what could be more
bitter to a rational person than the thought that God does not care about the
affairs of the world?1 If this were the case, the door would
be thrown open for the wicked to sin and the godly to despair!
The truth that God in fact reigns is as great
a joy to the godly as it is a terror to the wicked:
The Lord reigns, let the earth rejoice; let
the many coastlands be glad! (Ps. 97:1)
The Lord reigns; let the peoples tremble! (Ps. 99:1)
Humanity Is
a Special Object of Providence
Let us be comforted that human beings are a special object of providence. God provides for all His creatures but much more so mankind, who is uniquely the work of the Trinity and in whose creation He took special counsel: “Let Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness” (Gen. 1:26). This is the work of His heart: a being made according to His image and intended as a subordinate end of His whole creation, next to the principal—that of God’s glory. God is the preserver of man and beast, but principally of man, whereas beasts are subservient to the preservation and good of human creatures.
God’s
Saints Are Most Special to Him
Holy people are an even more special object of God’s providence. God preserves and provides for all things and all people. However, His eye is more peculiarly fixed on those who fear Him: “Behold, the eye of the Lord is on those who fear Him, on those who hope in His steadfast love” (Ps. 33:18).
His eye is so fixed that it is as though He has no thought about anything else.
God cares for all mankind, as all were
created in His own image, even though that image has been corrupted by sin. But
He cares much more for those in whom His image has been restored. If God loves Himself,
He loves His image and His works.
A man loves the works of His hands, but much
more does a father love His son, and much more does God love His own. Therefore,
He will work for their good and incline well to them. God exercises a special
providence over a righteous person and his ways: “The steps of a man are
established by the Lord, when He delights in his way” (Ps. 37:23). It is a
special providence because it is a delightful providence.
How cherished and joyful it is to be in covenant with God and to be under the care of His wisdom and goodness! He rules the world as its governor and has all things at His beck, yet He is our Father and friend. He will do his children no harm and will order all things to our good out of fatherly affection. He is the world’s sovereign but the Father of good people; He rules the heavens and the earth, but He loves his holy ones. Others are objects of His providence, but a righteous person is the end of it: “The eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to give strong support to those whose heart is blameless toward him” (2 Chron. 16:9).
Believers
Must Bear Innocent Sufferings
Knowing that God orders all things, believers
have sufficient grounds to persevere in their innocent sufferings and the
storms they experience in this world. God is a righteous governor who orders
all things and will reward His people for their suffering as well as for their
service: “God is not unjust so as to overlook your work and the love that you
have shown for His name in serving the saints, as you still do” (Heb. 6:10). He
is the one who presides over the world, who sees all our calamities and is
never mistaken as to their cause, and who has the will and power and wisdom to
help. Ours would indeed be a miserable state if there were no sovereign power
who heard our cries of distress and eased our consciences.
It is a comfort that there is a sovereign governor to whom we can pray and offer up our petitions. How the presence of a skillful pilot in a weather-beaten ship cheers the hearts of its fearful passengers! How dreadful it would be for them were the vessel left to the fury of the winds and waves without an able hand to manage it. God bridles and checks human passions in order to marshal them according to His pleasure. They are all but His instruments in His government and not lords over it. God can lay a plot with more wisdom for His servants’ safety than the enemy can for their destruction. He can counter the opposition’s plots with more power than they have to execute them. He can outwit their craft, overpower their strength, and turn their cruel designs against them as a knife into their own breasts.
Knowing We
Are Secure Gives Comfort to Believers
With knowledge of God’s care comes a particular
security that our needs will be met. If God takes care of the hairs on our
heads, which are ornamental and superfluous, why should we doubt that He takes
care of our necessities? If He is the guardian of our follicles, which fall
away without our being aware, will He be careless of us when our whole lives
are in the balance? Will God reach out with provision for His beasts, yet deny
it to His children? How would you judge a father who feeds his servants and
starves his sons, or a man who supplies his enemies but has no food for his
friends?
The unjust as well as the just are warmed by God’s sun and refreshed by His rain. Shall God not have a providence for those who have a special interest in the Mediator, who intervened in order to sustain the standing mercies we forfeited by sin? If He blesses with these blessings those who are the objects of His curse, will He not bless those who are in His special favor? “Fear the Lord, you His saints, for those who fear Him have no lack! The young lions suffer want and hunger; but those who seek the Lord lack no good thing” (Ps. 34:9-10).
A follower of Christ shall have what he needs,
but not always what he thinks he
needs. Providence supplies our necessities, not our desires. He satisfies our
wants, not our wantonness. If something is not a necessity, we should not
desire it; when it is a necessity, He will provide, and we shall not be without
it. When God does not grant a request, it may be that He has withheld from us a
desire that would not be as beautiful as we expected, but everything is made
beautiful in its season (Eccl. 3:11). If someone does not lack God’s kindness
to redeem him, he will never lack God’s kindness to provide for him.
Christians have been given the assurance of
the promise of providence by covenant, while others have an interest only in
common providence. God was a provider before, and now He has made Himself your
debtor. You may have prayed for His providential care before with a common
faith, but now you pray with a deeper, earnest understanding, for in His
promise He has given the believer the key to the chest of His providence: the
“promise for the present life and also for the life to come” (1 Tim. 4:8). The
promise of this life is to satisfy not our desires but our necessities; the
promise of the life to come is that we shall have whatever we want and whatever
we desire.
We may also take comfort in the knowledge
that God works a special providence over those who are mired in miserable
circumstances, for He is called “the helper of the fatherless” (Ps. 10:14).
This is the argument the church used to plead its return to God: “In you the
orphan finds mercy” (Hos. 14:3). What greater comfort is there than this: that
there is One presiding in the world who is so wise that He cannot be mistaken,
so faithful that He cannot deceive, so filled with compassion that He cannot
neglect His people, and so powerful that He can make stones into bread if He
please!
Furthermore, we can take comfort in this: God
does not govern the world only by His will as an absolute monarch but also by His
wisdom and goodness as a tender father. It is not His greatest pleasure to
demonstrate His sovereign power or inconceivable wisdom, but His greatest
pleasure is to display His immense goodness to which His other attributes are
subservient. God’s purpose in creation is His purpose in governance: the
communication and diffusion of His goodness. We may be sure that God will do
nothing except that which is for the best, His wisdom appointing it with the
highest reason and His goodness ordering it to the most gracious end. And
because He is the highest good, He not only wills good but wills the greatest
good in everything He does.
What greater comfort can there be than that we are under the care of an infallible, unwearied, and righteous governor! Infallible because of His infinite wisdom, unwearied because of His incomprehensible omnipotence, and righteous because of His unbounded goodness and holiness.
Study Questions
1. According to Charnock, what difference is there between the providence God exercises toward all people and the providence he exercises toward his people?
2. How ought believers to pray in light of God’s providence as discussed in this chapter?
3. What does Scripture say about God’s providence toward people in difficult circumstances? Is this comforting to you?[1]
[1] Charnock, Stephen. 2022. Pgs 109-114 Divine Providence: A Classic Work for Modern
Readers. Edited by Carolyn B. Whiting. Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R
Publishing.
1 It was an excellent
speech of a Stoic: “There is no life in a world empty of God and providence” (ouk esti zon en to kosmo keno theon kai
pronias).
[1]
Charnock, Stephen. 2022. Divine Providence:
A Classic Work for Modern Readers. Edited by Carolyn B. Whiting.
Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing.
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