15 Minutes
The whole world is in unbelief; how far distanced from unbelief are we? God's providence is God's caring provision for His people as He guides them in their journey of faith through life, accomplishing His purpose in them. God's mission is to save people and shape them to be more like Jesus. God is the creator of heaven and earth, and all that occurs in the universe takes place under Divine Providence. That is, under God's sovereign guidance and control as a loving Father, working all things for good. Through divine providence God accomplishes His will. To ensure that His purposes are fulfilled, God governs the affairs of men and works through the natural order of things. The laws of nature are nothing more than God’s work in the universe. The laws of nature have no inherent power; rather, they are the principles that God set in place to govern how things normally work. They are only “laws” because God decreed them. How does divine providence relate to human volition? We know that humans have a free will, but we also know that God is sovereign. How those two truths relate to each other is hard for us to understand. God hates sin and will judge sinners. God is not the author of sin, He does not tempt anyone to sin, and He does not condone sin. At the same time, God obviously allows a certain measure of sin. He must have a reason for allowing it, temporarily, even though He hates it. Scripture proof through reasoning - God allowed Joseph’s brothers to kidnap Joseph, sell him as a slave, and then lie to their father for years about his fate. This was wicked, and God was displeased. Yet, at the same time, all of their sin worked toward a greater good: Joseph ended up in Egypt, where he was made the prime minister. Joseph used his position to sustain the people of a broad region during a seven-year famine—including his own family. If Joseph had not been in Egypt before the famine began, millions of people, including the Israelites, would have died. How did God get Joseph to Egypt? He providentially allowed his brothers the freedom to sin. God’s divine providence is directly acknowledged.
Genesis 50:15-21
God allowed Judas to lie, deceive, cheat, steal, and finally betray the Lord Jesus into the hands of His enemies. All of this was a great wickedness, and God was displeased. Yet, at the same time, all of Judas’s plotting and scheming led to a greater good: the salvation of mankind. Jesus had to die at the hands of the Romans in order to become the sacrifice for sin. If Jesus had not been crucified, we would still be in our sins. How did God get Christ to the cross? God providentially allowed Judas the freedom to perform a series of wicked acts.
Luke 22:22
There is a spiritual balance between the sovereignty of God and the responsibility of man. Divine providence is taught.
Romans 8:28
All things” means “all things.” God is never out of control. Satan can do his worst, yet even the evil that is tearing the world apart is working toward a greater, final purpose. We can’t see it yet. But we know that God allows things for a reason and that His plan is good. Oh, the frustration of the sinner that yields his will to Satan. No matter what he does, he finds that his plans are thwarted and something good happens in the end. The doctrine of divine providence can be summarized this way: God in eternity past, in the counsel of His own will, ordained everything that will happen; yet in no sense is God the author of sin; nor is human responsibility removed. Nothing happens that God does not ordain, cause, or allow. The primary means by which God accomplishes His will is through secondary causes, for example, laws of nature, human choice, and the truth that even God “determined” to change His mind providentially when petitioned. God’s intervention can be direct as an event that occurs when the Deity of God becomes actively involved in changing some situations in human affairs.
Exodus 32:7-14 Joshua 10:12-14 Mark 13:14-20
We have a special privilege. If God did not promise to intervene when we face difficulties, we will have no grounds to pray, to ask for it. We are the target of God's promises and blessings. There is no altering His character, but to slight the mind of God breaches upon His call to us to reason with Him. Our reasoning with God is an assent to a revelation of God, it is a special instrument of apprehending, and laying hold on Christ for justification of the coming to understand that truth that we knew not.
Jeremiah 33:3
Unbelief is not intellectual, it is moral. It doesn't come out of the head; it comes out of the heart. Sin has its root in unbelief. Consider the attitude that rejects reasoning. It might show a good opinion of one’s self or a bad opinion of the word of God. What is the providence in Thomas, a disciple, saying, “I will not believe”? The bible does not tell us how Thomas was drawn to Jesus. Did a friend bring him? Did he learn of the new rabbi through the fame of him that went everywhere, and then come to him without solicitation? Did he hear him speak one day, and find himself drawn to him by the power of his gracious words? Or did Jesus seek him out in his home or at his work, and call him to be a follower? Did he not have even a glimmer of hope? Why was his willingness to understand the situation so negative? Why was Thomas’ view always from the dark side? Thomas’ coming is veiled in obscurity. With him there was no lack of reverence, rather a constitutional tendency to question, and to wait for proof which would satisfy the senses. But we do know that Thomas is that disciple willing to follow Jesus into death.
John 11:1-16
Thomas would rather die with Jesus than live without him. As the time of the cross drew near and Jesus offered the disciples understanding, it was Thomas who asked for clarification.
John 14:1-7
Christ’s testimony concerning their knowledge made the disciples more sensible of their ignorance, and more inquisitive after further light. Thomas, confessing his ignorance, however, seems more solicitous to know the way. He asks Jesus to make that statement a little plainer. This showed he was willing to own his defects. He was willing to be taught. And Jesus gives them the full answer..."if you have heard and understood rightly; for you know me, and I am the way; you know the Father, and He is the eternal end; and therefore, whither I go you know, and the way you know. Believe in God as the end, and in me as the way, and you do all you should do". How rich and significant is that message to us today? Why are we not following Jesus now? Preconceived notions may hinder the belief of truth when presented. First, Jesus says, “I am”. That is the name of power and authority. He is not a way...he is the way. Coming to God is only possible through him. Jesus is truth itself. He embodies all things that lead to truth. He offers us the exclusiveness to the only way to the claim of eternal life. The disciples at this time had not the wisdom that we have. They had not yet experienced the cross. Once they understood the truth of Jesus’ words they changed, and they went on to change the world. Thomas’ loyal love for Jesus was evident. Thomas evidenced only one motive: love, and one rule: obedience. His was not influenced by any question of consequences; but though it be to certain death, his love for Jesus hesitated not.
The disciples were coming together. They were having breakthrough moments of the revelation of truth after seeing their risen Savior. Jesus’ words had in them the power to grow the spiritual attainment needed to reckon with the present and soon to be encounters of apostleship. They were dropped into darkness and brought back to light and was now upon the mountaintop of faith. And then the words...”I will not believe”.
You can feel the shift of atmosphere at Thomas’ words, and that’s exactly what we do when we douse the fire of other’s search for deeper truth. They had proving faith that was met with firm unbelief. Dissension enters. Distraction ensues. Instead of focusing on forward kingdom thinking and the glory of God, Jesus’ very disciples were left divided and trying to convince one of their own. Is our unbelief causing dissension in the body? What must that following week of study have been like? What was the “rest” of that Sabbath? God’s providence did something for Thomas. Truth appeared to saturate his mind in truth. God brought to Thomas His presence of truth. He caused him to see Jesus. Unbelief turned to belief. It was by chance that this chosen disciple was absent, then came and heard, heard and doubted, doubted and touched, touched and believed. It was not by chance but in God’s providence. The wounds of Christ healed Thomas’ unbelief, strengthened his faith and did a divine purpose for Peter and John. Christ was teaching that faith is the proof of what cannot be seen, yet what is seen gives knowledge and grows faith. We cannot see God, but what does our faith tell us of Him. It is His word that gives us knowledge and what of our faith as we accept of His presence in the revelation of truth. Thomas’ unbelief was turned to belief and by faith he saw God, and in seeing Jesus he came to the truth of the resurrection.
John 20:28, 29
In that moment Thomas saw both the body on the cross, hanging by hands and feet, the side opened by the soldier’s spear, and his living friend and master. As these two figures fused together, so Thomas leapt the gap between loyalty to a friend and adoring faith in God Himself. His ponderous pessimism and lonely doubts disappeared, and he identified his friend. In Thomas’ mouth, was the complete acknowledgment of Christ’s nature and one of the most definitive assertions of faith recorded in the bible. In the face of Jesus, Thomas beheld the abundant consolation in the hope of eternal life. Sight may have made Thomas believe that Jesus was risen, but it was something other and more inward than sight that opened his lips to cry, ‘My Lord and my God!’ With this response, Thomas left no room for doubt of Jesus’ identity, of who Jesus is. He knew that Jesus was all that He is in Himself. Thomas realized that Jesus had read his heart and known of his bold demand, his reply was not just a profession of faith but an act of adoration and an expression of deep sorrow at his own unbelief. Thomas’ faith was now a great deal more than just an avowal. In the faith of the divine he taught the Deity of Christ from his wounds. How heightened and strengthened is our faith in the experience of Thomas’ doubting? Thomas reasoned the evidence to its full meaning. The graciousness shown by Jesus to Thomas is that graciousness given us that we know it was not by chance, but in God’s providence that we have never a doubt where the reality of truth is reasoned to offer still more truth. We have this assurance by faith, that comes by the hearing, and that hearing by the truth of the word of God. Our faith is that by which we not only see and touch the Word, but we know him as our Lord...our God. This is the pinnacle of the testimony to Jesus Christ.
I Peter 1:8, 9
Jesus chose to bring to heaven those wounds he bore for us, he refused to remove them, so that he might show God his Father the price and the love of our being set at liberty. The Father places him in this state at his right hand, embracing the trophy of our salvation: such are the witnesses the crown of his scars has shown us there. And as pertaining to Peter and John...
John 21:15-24
Comments