Page 6 - Oct19

Experts About Providence Elder Mark Green

The old puritan, John Flavel, once wrote a book called "The

Mystery of Providence." I have not read it and so know nothing
of its content, but the title certainly says a lot. The providential
government of God over His creation is something that man
cannot fathom. I make that statement considering it to be an un-

deniable fact. God has given us snapshots in inspired Scripture so that we may see
how He has worked on occasion in the past, but what an infinitesimally-small portion
of his providential acts would those comprise?

Solomon said, as he mused upon the affairs of men in this confusing and often-

discouraging life, "The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet
bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of
skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all" (Ecc. 9.11). Things happen in this
life, things that are beyond our control, so that the outcome of events is not what we

might have expected. When Solomon uses the word "chance," I absolutely do not un-
derstand him to be saying that those things are beyond the view of God's all-seeing
eye or the reach of His all-powerful hand. God is not taken by surprise by any event,
and He has power to intrude into any of the affairs of men, should He so desire, to

change what might otherwise have been. By "chance," I understand Solomon simply
to mean those things that occur unexpectedly that change outcomes from what might
have been predicted to something else.

Some things happen in the ordinary course of events — that which occurs if God does
not intervene in the affairs of men. Some things happen only because God has inter-
vened. Sometimes He intervenes; sometimes He does not. The Scriptures are replete
with examples of both. Now, if nothing ever happens that is different from what other-

wise would have been, then there is no such distinction as "things that happen in the
ordinary course of events" and "interventions by God;" but I trust that our readers un-
derstand that this is a valid Scriptural distinction. continued
Zion’s Lamp