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It is engraved on many tombstones, inscribed in many cards, expressed in many obituaries: He died too soon. She was taken before her time. Of all the mysteries in this universe, few are more perplexing than the mystery of God’s sovereignty over life and death. Why do some live to so advanced an age while others barely live at all? Why are some who display such promise taken before they can deploy their gifts? Why does God call some early …
I have often thought that people who desire a modern-day gift of prophecy ought to be careful what they wish for. After all, the biblical prophets were often asked to speak words that immediately brought about their own persecution or even death. And even if they did not suffer to quite that degree, they were often asked to speak words that brought sorrow more than hope and alarm more than encouragement. The calling to be a prophet was the calling …
I want you to imagine that, at least for a time, the Lord would see fit to involve us in selecting the providences we would receive from his hand. I want you to imagine that through one of his deputies—an angel perhaps—he would approach us to ask how we would prefer to serve him. In other words, I want you to imagine that for just a while he would choose to offshore his sovereignty and outsource it to us. I …
A couple of weeks ago I read a story about Tesla. The reporter had written a long piece about the company’s declining share prices and what it might mean for its future. He had written about its eccentric founder and some of his perplexing public comments. At the end of the article he included a little note explaining that, though he had reached out to the company to request a comment, he had received none. He had received none because …
Christians speak often of God’s sovereignty. Reformed Christians speak very often of God’s sovereignty. God’s sovereignty refers to his presence in this world, his authority over this world, and his control within this world. God owns and oversees his creation to such a degree that nothing happens apart from his knowledge, apart from his will, apart from his wisdom. There is nothing we are given that does not in some way pass through his hands. As we speak of God’s …
No one who has ever listened to Beethoven’s 9th symphony has thought to himself, “I think each of these musicians is just making it up as they go.” No one who has ever listened to Vivaldi’s Four Seasons has thought to herself, “I am pretty sure no one is leading this orchestra.” No one who has ever listened to Handel’s Messiah and heard the swells and strains of the Hallelujah chorus has thought “I detect no sign of a composer …
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Not only that, but the fear of the Lord is the beginning of the Christian life. The Bible makes it clear that to love God, to honor God, to obey God, we must fear God. But “fear” is a word with many dimensions, many definitions. In what ways are we to fear God? Much of what I know about fearing God I learned from R.C. Sproul. Looking back to Luther, …
God’s providence is the single greatest hindrance to the floods of sin that would otherwise gush out of our sinful hearts. If it were not for God’s care and preservation, even we Christians would be far more sinful than we dare imagine. If it were not for God’s gracious interference, our best efforts in holiness would not be enough to keep us from drowning in sin and heaping contempt on the name of Christ. God takes far better care of …
I have invited you, and others, to read a classic book with me as part of my ongoing Reading Classics Together effort. This time around we are reading John Flavel’s The Mystery of Providence. As you may have surmised from the title, this is a book about providence—about God’s care for his people. In Meet the Puritans Joel Beeke and Randall Pederson tell us what we can expect as we read through the book’s three sections and thirteen chapters. In …
What do we mean when we say that God is sovereign? A.W. Pink tackles this question right out of the gate in his book The Sovereignty of God. He explains what the Bible means when it claims that God is sovereign and he then compares this to modern sentimentality. The Sovereignty of God. What do we mean by this expression? We mean the supremacy of God, the kingship of God, the god-hood of God. To say that God is Sovereign …