Some people think that because God sovereignly rules over the events of our lives, we're not responsible for our sin once we're saved. But today on Truth for Life, Alastair Begg explains why the doctrine of Providence gives believers great comfort, security, and humility, but does not absolve us from our wrongdoings. We're in Genesis chapter 45. The interesting thing is. And the three recurring statements which underpin all of this are so important.
Three times Joseph tells his brothers, God sent me ahead of you. That's in verse five, God sent me ahead of you. Verse 7, God sent me ahead of you. Verse 8, it wasn't you who sent me here. God sent me here.
I want you to notice something very, very important. This is Joseph speaking, not the brothers. If the brothers were speaking in this way, Then we might have Justifiably accused them of seeking to shift the blame from themselves to God. They would have said to themselves, oh, it wasn't us that did this, it was God who did this. God sent you here, Joseph.
We're not responsible. Don't you understand the doctrine of providence? The answer, of course, would have been: yes, I do understand the doctrine of providence, but unfortunately, you don't, because if you did, you wouldn't say such things. You see, they could not evade responsibility. They meant evil.
They meant evil against him. But In Joseph's response, he's in effect saying, My coming to Egypt. is more God's work than yours.
Now Lawson, the Scottish commentator years ago, puts it in this way: God was the first cause, they were but instruments overruled by him for the accomplishment of his own purposes. It was the will of God. both that Joseph should be brought to Egypt, and that the malevolence of his brothers should be the means used for bringing him to it.
Now, there's a great mystery in this, and you can read books and volumes on it, but let me just try and help you. The nature of sin is not altered. by the use God makes of it. The nature of sin is not altered by the use that God makes of it. Poison does not cease to be poison just because it is part of the composition of a medicine that heals.
Still poison. And sin is still sin. Even though God may choose to use that sin for which man is totally responsible and God bears no blame. in the unfolding of his plan. Again, Lawson.
The Lord of hosts permits much evil in the world. We are amazed that the God who hates all sin should permit so much sin to find a place in a world which He governs with an absolute sway. Isn't that one of the questions people ask it all the time?
Well, why if God is sovereign and in control of everything, why would He allow so much sin in the world? And the answer is for his own glory. He knows what he's doing. Shut up. Keep marching.
You're not God. He has dealt with sin at the cross, and he is about to deal with sin finally when he banishes the evil one into hell forever. But in the meantime... It serves his purposes. And since he is God, Let us not raise our ugly voices in protest.
But says Lawson, here we find that he not only permits sin, but he makes use of it. No sinner can do any evil. That God has not intended to use for the advancement of His own glory.
Now if you want to really get into it, Buy yourself a copy. of Calvin's Institutes. And here you can delve your brain. to levels hitherto unknown before. Let me give a little flavor of it to you so that you can all rush out and get one of these wonderful volumes for yourself.
In tackling the issue. Of how Providence cannot be used as a cloak or as an excuse for our wickedness, Calvin writes as follows. I grant more, he says. He's been arguing along this line. I grant more.
Thieves. And murderers. and other evildoers are the instruments of divine providence. And the Lord Himself uses these. To carry out the judgments that he has determined with himself.
Yet I deny that they can derive from this any excuse for their evil deeds. Why? Will they either involve God in the same iniquity with themselves? Or will they cloak their own depravity with His justice? They can do neither.
In their own conscience, They are so convicted as to be unable to clear themselves. In themselves they so discover all evil. But in him, only the lawful use of their evil intent. as to preclude the charge against God.
Well and good. For he works through them. And then he comes up with this rather ancient illustration which is not for the faint heart. And whence I ask you, comes the stench of a corpse. which is both putrefied and laid open by the heat of the sun.
All men see that it is stirred up by the sun's rays. Yet no one for this reason says that the rays stink. Thus since the matter and guilt of evil repose in a wicked man, What reason is there to think that God contracts any defilement if he uses his service for his own purpose? All of the evil was Joseph's brothers. God is not contaminated because He determines to use their responsible activities of evil in order to achieve an overarching purpose that He has for His servant.
Away, therefore, says Calvin, with his dog like impudence. which can indeed bark at God's justice afar off. but cannot touch it. With all this dog-like impudence. I like that.
It has a nice, friendly sort of ring to it, doesn't it? But I'm forced to tell you that in the last 25 years, there have been way too many books. written which are nothing other than doglike impudence. And it is an expression of the low view in contemporary evangelicalism of the greatness and grandeur and wonder of God that we would feel that we have the right to call in question the immensity of his being. And it is a sad and sorry evidence of the state of affairs in which we live.
Calvin was right. It is dog-like impudence. You'd smack your dog's nose for it. And it is only in the providence and grace and goodness of God that He doesn't just drive us into eternity. For the impudence which so often fills our mortal frames.
and which we allow ourselves the luxury of giving vent to.
Now you need you're sensible people, you need to think this out. And I'll need to wrap this up. Let me say three important practical things. There are many we can say about the doctrine of providence. First of all, the doctrine of providence.
brings to his comfort in the face of great difficulty and sorrow. You see, how can you go to sleep at night and get up in the morning? Unless you have a view of the providence of God. See, this overarching world view is so crucial in our day, you know, and it expresses itself in all kinds of ways. If you went to see Jane Eyre, one of the lovely scenes in Jane Eyre is when she goes to become the The governess to that little girl with a French background.
And she sits on her bed with her on the first night that she's there as her governess. And the little girl looks up to her, and she's such a cute wee girl and has pigtails and everything. And she says to her, saying her name, which I can't remember from the book, she says to her, you know, and Miss X. Will we be happy? And Jane Eyre says to her, We will work hard.
And we will be Content. See, wrong question. Will we be happy? Happiness is a byproduct. We will work hard and we will be content.
Why? Because God is in sovereign control over all of these details. None of us knows what the phone call from the hospital brings. None of us knows when we come around the corner in our car to see the flashing lights and the wreck at the side of the road what it brings to our hearts and lives. And so are we to live then in paralyzing fear of all these things?
No, we must rest in this confidence that the God who oversees the rise and the fall of the sparrows is profoundly involved in the life and circumstances of those whom He has made the object of His love. In other words, if he's looking after the sparrows, just drive home and have your eyes open. If he's looking after the sparrows and he has made you the special object of his love, then how much more will he look after you, O ye of little faith? You're worried about tomorrow morning, and I understand. There is anxiety that fills your heart.
You're fearful about your job, about circumstances involving your loved ones. How will this person cope? And they are, the Lord understands all of these things. And what is it that allows us to sleep? The sleep of the just?
It is a recognition of God's providence. I don't have any doubt that Joseph slept as well in the dungeon as he slept in the palace. Because he knew that his exaltations came from God and his deprivations ultimately came from the same source. It provides great comfort in the face of difficulties and sorrows. Also, it provides great security in the light of the increasing global and national chaos in which we live.
I hope you understand how important it is that you vote. How responsible you must be as citizens. how you must think properly and you must listen carefully and you must make wise assessments and you must exercise all the privileges of democracy which this great land affords to you. But having said all of that, I don't want you to lose a wink of sleep. Not a wink.
Don't allow the debates to unsettle you. There's hardly a good sentence in the whole lot of them. I just like to hear one sentence come out of the heart or the inside of somebody just once. Written by spin doctors and speech writers and consumer. discoverers and so on.
And all the time we're told this is the great nation of the world, you know. If we don't get in here and we don't do that, then this will happen. And if that happens, and we don't get over there fast and sort that out, then we'll be in deep difficulty there. And of course, we've got to get a few people over here to sort out the Middle East and so on. And we've really got a lot of things on our plate, and really.
Really, it's just as well we're as great as we are, you know. Otherwise all the wheels would come off and the cart would be left at the side of the road. Turn to Isaiah chapter 40 and get your head and your heart put in alignment near once. Isaiah 40, let me point it out to you again. Isaiah 40 and verse 15.
What does the prophet say under God? Surely the nations are like a drop. in a bucket.
Now that doesn't sound very nice. They are regarded as dust on the scales. I'm still of the vintage where I used to be sent for a stone of potatoes. In a leather bag my mother gave me, I would balance it on the handlebars of my tricycle. And the potatoes were weighed out on those big brass scales.
And they pulled the potatoes out of a dusty bag. And they put them in the side, and some of you did the same. And then they poured them in my bag. And when they'd finished pouring them in the bag, there was always dust left on the scales. But it wasn't enough to move the scales, it was just there.
You could. Blow it away. You think God is preoccupied the way we are? Mm. The nations of the earth are like the small dust.
You blow them away. They're like the drop in the bucket when you finish washing your car and you dump the two-gallon bucket and then you do that thing where you try and get rid of the excess. There's always a bit there. It just hangs. It's a right nuisance.
And you try and get it out. And it goes. Like that. The Lord goes. There's the British Empire.
There's the United States. There's Korea north and south. There's the millions of China. Not in a disregard for humanity, but in the great scheme of things, we have got the preoccupation all, all, all. Wrong.
And you see, it is an absence of an understanding of providence. which creates this terror. And an awareness of this truth. removes it. If you doubt it, look at verse 25 in the same passage.
To whom will you compare me? Or who is my equal, says the Holy One. Lift your eyes and look to the heavens, who created all these. Been some lovely nights, haven't there? This past week some starry nights.
Chance to Stand and just look up and wonder. The astronomers tell us That in the galaxy of the Milky Way alone, There are a hundred billion stars. any one of which is capable of eating planets. The size of the earth. without even burping.
A hundred billion. Start counting from one and let me know when you get along the journey. Give me a call at my house when you get a 75 billion, will you? He who brings out the starry host one by one calls them each by name. You want to have security in a world that is all topsy-turvy and upside-down and anxious and chaotic and everything else?
Just bow down before the wonder of God's providence. And thirdly, It provides humility. in the awareness that all of our successes are ultimately from God. and the people who have injured us. We treat with humility.
Because we recognize That in some great mystery God is still on the throne. Can I take just a moment and do the last point? I do want just to Draw this to a close because it's so important. If I leave it hanging, I do you a disservice. Indulge me.
It is in this story also an expression of genuine forgiveness. Genuine forgiveness. You see, what do you think they were expecting from his lips? When he finally gets a hold of himself and says who he is, I'm sure they didn't imagine that he was going to say what he says in verse 5, and now do not be distressed and don't be angry with yourselves for selling me here. It must have struck them as bizarre.
It strikes us, in a sense, as strange, because surely there was good reason for them to grieve over their actions. Shouldn't when people sin, they be brought to repentance? Shouldn't they be made aware of their guilt? Shouldn't they confess their sin? What is this?
Oh, don't grieve. It doesn't matter. Is he simply casting it all off? 22 years, he blows it by and he says, hey, it doesn't really matter. I want to let you off.
No. Because already you see in chapter 42 and in 24, he has discovered that they have repentant hearts. Verse 21 of 42, when he overheard them, when they didn't understand that he was listening, they said to one another, out of earshot, surely we're being punished because of our brethren. And then the acknowledgement of their sin. We saw how distressed he was when he pleaded with us for his life.
We wouldn't listen. That's why this distress has come upon us. And he had wept on that occasion. They didn't realize that Joseph could understand them since he was using an interpreter, and he turned away from them and began to weep.
Now we're going to have to wait till heaven, but I believe that the reason he wept was because he realized that his brothers were actually coming to an acknowledgement of their sin. And that was why, when he had no reason to think that they were facing up to their guilt, he treated them with severity. And he treated them with harshness. And he put them through this process. In order that they might be brought to an awareness of the fact that they were sinful.
And that is why the law of God is preached to us, so that we might be brought to an awareness of our sin and our guilt, so that we might realize that we have erred and strayed from his ways like lost sheep, so that we might be brought to repentance and to faith. But having been brought there. As he believed his brothers to have been brought there, when he realizes that they are deeply humbled. that they are now overwhelmed with confusion. He is concerned.
that they do not carry their grief. to excess. Neither they Nor we should consider our faults and crimes too great to be forgiven by God. or too great to be forgiven by the brother or the sister we have offended. The fact is, loved ones, it is sometimes much easier to forgive the injuries which are done to us.
than to believe that the injuries which we have done are forgiven. Spent a lot of time in pastoral counseling trying to assure people. That when the word of God says your sins I will remember no more. He means exactly what he says. And it is not that Joseph offers to them here some soft, soap, mealy mouth, easy way out of all of the sin and hatred and envy and jealousy.
It is that having acknowledged the fact that they have been brought low to a recognition of all of their wrongness, he doesn't want them now to be buried with undue sorrow. And he says to them, Hey guys. Come here. Benjamin. You first.
I want to give you a hug. And he hugged Benjamin and he wept, and Benjamin hugged him and he wept. That's kind of understandable, big brother, wee brother. But after all, Benjamin hadn't been involved in any of it. But then verse 15.
It's getting to be one of my favorite verses in the Bible, and he kissed all his brothers. And he wept over them. And afterwards his brothers talked with him. Kissed all his brothers. Oh dear, oh dear.
kissed all his brothers. Can you kiss all your brothers? And sisters. You holding grudges? You're holding grudges over things that don't even approximate.
to one microcosm of all that he'd been through. Why are you doing that? Either it is because you have never yourself been forgiven. Because you see, the ultimate expression of our awareness of forgiveness is that we are quick to forgive others. Or it is that you have determined to live in bypath meadow and you are backslidden and you are stuck in neutral and you have two wheels in a ditch and that's why you can't worship, that's why you can't witness, that's why you're no jolly use for the kingdom.
And God says to you today. If I from the cross in the person of my Son looked into your eyes and said, Father, forgive them for they know not what they do, are you honestly telling me that you plan to hold a grudge against your brother and sister for all the rest of your life over some marginal minimal offense? Of all things. of all things, the church. is to be the people.
of forgiveness. Is that not part of our prayer? Forgive. Our debts. As we Forgive.
Our debtors. Yeah. You're listening to Bible teacher Alistair Begg on Truth for Life. If you've been enjoying our study of God's providence in the life of Joseph, you can explore this dramatic story in more depth by requesting today's book recommendation. It's called The Hand of God: Finding His Care in All Circumstances.
This is a book written by Alistair, and it makes a great supplement to our current study. In the book, Alistair dives more deeply into God's sovereign reign over the unfolding events in the life of Joseph, looking both at the good and the bad. If you've ever wondered if God really does care about you and the details of your life, this book will give you great assurance. Learn why you can confidently trust that God is working just as much in your life today as He was in Joseph's life thousands of years ago. Even when circumstances feel out of control, God's providential hand is never absent.
Ask for your copy of Alistair's book, The Hand of God, when you donate to Truth for Life today. You can use the mobile app, go online at truthforlife.org slash donate, or call us at 888-588-7884. And if you'd rather mail your donation along with your request for the book, write to Truth for Life at Post Office Box 398000 Cleveland, Ohio 44139. I'm Bob Lepine. Thanks for starting the week studying God's Word with us.
Tomorrow we'll explore what genuine forgiveness looks like, and we'll find out why radical forgiveness should identify us. as Christians. The Bible teaching of Alastair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life. Where the Learning is for Living.
