Another Perilous Way in Which We Deny The Providence Of God

Turning to Sin to Have Our Way

We deny God’s providence when we try to circumvent the will of God and use dishonest means to gain wealth or honor. 

This is to leave God and seek relief at hell’s gates, preferring the devil’s providence above God’s. When God does not answer immediately, like Saul we go to the medium of En-dor to have our way by hell if heaven refuses us (1 Sam. 28:5–8). This is striking a bargain with hell.

Surely no one will argue that when they make covenants with the Father of Lies, as witches and conjurors are reported to do, the devil follows through and delivers knowledge, wealth, or honor. But those who make such covenants acknowledge the devil to be the god of this world, because they seek to have Satan confer on them things that are only in the absolute power of God to promise or bestow.

When a person commits sin as a way to gain his ambitions and desires, he implicitly covenants with the devil, the head of sinners. He sets up his sin in the place of God, because he hopes to attain by sinful means things that are only in the hands of God, the only one we can depend on. This is the devil’s design out of an enmity to providence. He tempted Christ to go his own way in distrust of his Father’s care—“If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread,” Satan says in Matthew 4:3, as though God would not provide for his Son. Our Savior’s answer exposes the devil’s design.

To turn to sin is to prostitute providence to sate our own desires, pulling it down from its heights of governing the world to make it a lackey to our sinful pleasure. To use means that God prohibits is to set up hell to govern us since God will not govern our affairs in answer to our greedy desires. It is to endeavor to gain by God’s curse that which we should only expect to receive by God’s blessing. God has forbidden—even severely threatened—sinful ways, yet many would rather believe that God’s curse will further us more than his blessing. This is to disparage his blessing and prefer his curse, to slight his wisdom and adore our folly.

When we depart from God’s way, we depart from God’s protection. We have no recourse for the blessing of providence without this condition: “Trust in the LORD, and do good; dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness” (Ps. 37:3). To do evil, then, is not to trust in God or regard his providential care.

Charnock, Stephen. 2022. Pg. 99. Divine Providence: A Classic Work for Modern Readers. Edited by Carolyn B. Whiting. Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing.