The Lord Reigns

If you've ever traveled on an airplane, you have likely experienced some turbulence.

A bumpy flight can cause you to grab the armrest and maybe question the ability of the pilot. Life can be like that, and the unexpected turmoil we face may spark some panic. But make no mistake, God is in control. Here's Alistair Begg to tell us more today on Truth for Life. I want to read just one verse from the Bible, from Proverbs chapter 21, and verse 1. It reads as follows. The king's heart is a stream of water in the hand of the Lord. He turns it wherever he will. Amen.

If you're at all like me, you need, on a regular basis, to have your lives recalibrated by the truth of God's providential care. In 1975, we traveled from the docks in New York to Tilbury in London on a Russian ship called the Mikhail Lermontov. It was the best the Russians could produce. It was like a floating bathtub. It sank off the coast of New Zealand in 1986. The mystery for me was that it had not sunk during our voyage. We were traveling fourth class because there wasn't a fifth class. And I learned then that I wasn't remotely interested in becoming a sailor, and particularly when the seas became almost overwhelming. It said in the booklet, however, that we shouldn't be alarmed, because this vessel had stabilizers.

Oh, I said to myself, this is terrific. Stabilizers are what we call in Britain training wheels, so you don't fall off your bicycle. So you would ask your friends, do you have stabilizers? Well, this big thing had stabilizers.

Apparently, they put them out on a number of occasions I could never have known. Because there were times when down in the depths of this big carcass in bunk beds with me on the top—top bed, that is—and it seemed to me, I said, I don't know if there's anybody up on the bridge at all. I think there's a possibility that this thing just got started and is going nowhere.

It may actually just be going down. Do you remember that Wall Street article with Henry Allen, who was once the editor of the Washington Post? Remember how I told you before it began? His opening sentence was terrific.

It was arresting. He said, For the first time in my seventy-two years, I have no idea what's going on. And I remember when I read that thinking, That is apropos. But I'm feeling it all over again, and I feel that some of you may be too. The sense in the political, social, spiritual, ecclesiastical framework of tonight that not a few people, because of the turbulent nature of the journey, find themselves saying, Is anyone in charge around here? And that's why Proverbs 21.1 is the verse that I want to take and give to you in these final moments. This is a picture here of the providence of God.

That in the same way that the farmer would cut trenches in his fields in order to ensure that the streams of water reach their design destination, so, Solomon says, this actually extends on the part of God to kings and presidents and rulers of the earth—so as to remind us when we may be tempted to wonder if anyone is in charge that, in actual fact, the Lord God omnipotent reigns. I have three words. The first is clarity. The second is mystery. The third is security. First of all, then, clarity.

Why clarity? Because this truth, conveyed in pictorial form here at the beginning of Proverbs 21, is a truth that isn't hidden in a corner of the Bible. You wouldn't have to go and ferret around in the Scriptures to find this truth.

No, it stands, as it were, at the very forefront of all that we discover, whether we go to the Psalms or to Proverbs or whether we go to the Prophets or whether we go all the way to the very end of the Bible to the book of Revelation, classically in Isaiah 40. Isaiah writes, He—that is, God—sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers. He brings princes to nothing, and he makes the rulers of the earth as emptiness. The universe was made by him, is providentially sustained by him, and is entirely dependent upon him. That God is sustaining, he is operating, he is directing everything according to the counsel of his will, preserving all of his creatures to the appointed end, that he may be glorified and that it may be for our good. Now, how in the world is it that God actually accomplishes this?

Well, the Reformers were good at this, and I'll tell you what they said. They said, God acts by physical force on inert matter, on stuff. That he acts in animals by instinct and appetite. That he acts in intelligent beings by motives suited to our faculties.

And he acts in his redeemed people by the influences of grace. And I say to you that it is the very clarity of these things in Scripture which is met with resistance and with unbelief. And in large measure, because we are living at a point in our nation's history where we are tempted to foster big, big views of man—I'm tempted to say huge views of man—and small, diminishing views of God, so that our children are raised with no notion of their origin, no understanding of there being any ark through the journey of their lives, and no occasion to ponder their ultimate destiny.

They are growing up without answers to foundational questions. Where did I come from? What am I?

Where am I going? And in that great turbulent seasickness, the Bible is absolutely clear. Well, you say, If it's that clear, does it really matter?

Yes, it really, really matters. You remember when Paul begins with the Athenians, he starts from this very point. After having said to them, I can see you're a religious people and that you have various shrines around here in Athens, he said, Well, I'd like to tell you, apparently, you want to cover your bases, that if there is a deity that you do not know, you have one little statue for him or for her. And he says, Well, let me tell you about this.

And what's his opening line? The God who made the world and everything in it cannot be contained in buildings made by hands. Before there was time, before there was anything, there was God—clarity. Secondly, and more briefly, mystery. What the Bible tells us—and it is poetically portrayed here again in our text, which gives us a topical study, as you would see—what it tells us is that the kings and the rulers of the world have their hearts governed by God. They're governed by God powerfully and yet at the same time invisibly. God directs the heart of the king without violating the nature of things.

Now, even a cursory reading of the Bible will help us to understand this. Take, for example, our studies in Esther a long time ago now, and the decision of Ahasuerus to ditch his wife. Vashti was his decision.

It was largely on account of his ego, possibly on account of an illicit use of alcohol, certainly on a desire to look as a big guy in front of all of his friends, and he caught himself hoisted on his own petard, and in a moment Vashti was gone. It was his choice. It was his choice to accept the directive of his friends, who said, Let's have a talent competition.

Let's bring in all the cute ladies, and let's choose one out of the group. He said, Yeah, I would like to do that as well. And it is on account of his own decision that Esther became the focus of his attention and of his favor. It was his own decision, when he couldn't sleep, to have an audiobook—not one of our audiobooks, but an early form of audiobook. He called for his people, said, Could you read to me? They said, Well, read to you. They read him something that would be regarded as relatively tedious.

Perhaps the design would be so that he could get off to sleep. He made a decision and dumped Vashti. He made a decision and took Esther.

He made a decision to have the book read. And what happened? Well, it led to the hanging of Haman and to the exaltation of Mordecai. Why?

Because the king's heart is a stream of water in the hand of the Lord. Now, that's just one illustration. You can go to Artaxerxes. You can go to Nebuchadnezzar. Nebuchadnezzar, who devastates the people of God, who drags them all off into Babylon, who exalts himself to a degree that is quite incredible. If you've ever thought that any contemporary politicians resembled Nebuchadnezzar, you can understand that they don't even come close. And yet, in Jeremiah 25.9, God says of Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuchadnezzar is my servant.

How? Because the king's heart is a stream of water. Now, it works, in a way, whereby, as I say—and this is important to understand—God does not destroy the natural faculty, nor does he take away the freedom of the will. Even when, as in the case of Nebuchadnezzar, the inclinations of the king or of the ruler or of the president, even when the inclinations are corrupt and their motives are impure, he still makes them the instruments of his pleasure and the ministers of his providence. Now, one of the ways to test any doctrine is to ask yourself the question, Well, in light of what is being said, how does this work with Jesus? How would we find it unfolding in the life of Christ himself?

And to that I would say, Well, I'm glad you asked. And I would turn you, for your homework, to Acts chapter 4, and to Peter and John before the council, after they've prayed for boldness and so on. And then here is the statement from these men. Sovereign Lord, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and everything in them, who through the mouth of our Father David your servant, said by the Holy Spirit, Why did the Gentiles rage and the peoples plod in vain? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers were gathered together against the LORD and against his anointed. Psalm 2.

In other words, here goes. The rulership of the world says, We will oppose this. We will oppose this king.

All right? That's the context. And truly in this city there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, your anointed one, both Herod and Pontius Pilate—the kings, the rulers, the governors.

Now notice the next phrase. To do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place. There, my friends, is both the clarity and the mystery—that the exercise of rebellion, as a free choice on the part of the rulers and the kings, set forward God's four-ordained plan of salvation. Are you worried that there may be nobody up on the bridge? Clarity, mystery, and finally, security.

Because this is it, isn't it? The birthright of all who are in Christ. Those who are trusting in God. Those who are resting in him. So that even when it's obvious that the wicked flourish—even when I, when we, are disheartened, even when things just look so out of joint, so misshapen, so crooked—this, again, is where the Puritans help us. Do you know this quote? I hope you do.

If you don't, you need to learn it from Thomas Watson. Suppose, he says, you were in a blacksmith's shop and should see these several sorts of tools, some crooked, some bowed, others hooked. Would you condemn all these things, because they do not look handsome? The Smith makes use of them all for doing his work. So it is with the providence of God.

They seem to us to be very crooked and strange, yet they all carry on God's work. What is the appointed end towards which God works? His glory and our good. What is that good? Health, wealth, happiness?

No! And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. And that good in a phrase—if you ever say to yourself, I don't know how I'm going in my Christian life, I don't know what I'm doing, I don't know what God has for me, I don't know what he's doing with me—let me tell you what he's doing with you. Because the Bible tells us, in a phrase, he's making you and me like Jesus.

That's what he's doing. To make us like our elder brother. Romans 8.28 is a shaving mirror verse, isn't it?

And we know it well, and we quote it with frequency. But what about the twenty-ninth verse? For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be what? To be conformed to the image of his Son.

So all the sad things, all the crooked things, all the broken things, all the disheartening things, all the up-down turbulence of the world and of our own private worlds in the economy and mystery of God is a basis ultimately for security. He has purposed from all of eternity to do it. When Paul writes to the Corinthians, he says, and in the present tense, existentially, we are being transformed into his likeness. So his eternal purpose is that we might become like Jesus. His existential purpose is that the ongoing reality of our lives might be to make us more like Jesus. And then, eschatologically, his purpose is the same. John.

And when we see him, we will be like him. Well, I think it was a word for me, maybe a word for you. It's kind of good, you know, I get to preach to myself.

Boy, do I need it. Let me finish in this way with a childhood illustration. Not a childish one, but one from childhood. My grandfather on my mother's side took me all the time on public transportation all around Glasgow. He did that because he never drove a car.

He was wounded so badly in the First World War it wasn't possible. And so we would go on the underground, where, nowhere, we'd just go completely around and eat toffees. And then we would go on the big ferry, which took cars across the Clyde, and then when we got safely on that side, we would, for an adventure, come back on the wee ferry, which was only for people, no cars could go on it. And on all of these travels I learned lots of things, and he would point things out. And on the Clyde, he would show me. He would say, Do you see that little boat that goes out there, to the big boat? Sometimes the bell would ring, signaling that the boat was coming and signaling that it's seven o'clock. I understand that perfectly.

Thank you. And I'd say, Yeah, I see the little boat going out there. And he said, If you look carefully, you will notice that somebody comes off that little boat and goes up into that huge ocean-going liner. And he said, That is because that person is the pilot, and he is the one who is able then to bring that ocean-going liner into its final destination. And then he would tell me, he says, Son, you see, in some ways, Jesus is the pilot. Only Jesus will be able to get you to your final destination. And then he would tell me this little chorus. Do you want a pilot?

Signal them to Jesus. Do you want a pilot? Then bid him, come on board. For he will safely guide across the ocean wide, until at last you reach your heavenly harbor. So far, his word has proved true.

Why would it not, who is grounded in the very Word of God, that he who has begun a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ? It's clear. It's mysterious. It brings security. And it also ought to call from us a deeper sense of humility. Alistair Begg reminding us today that no matter how rough the journey, God is in control. This is Truth for Life.

Please keep listening. Alistair will be back in just a minute to close with prayer. First, let me mention our book recommendation today. It's a book that will help you put into practice what we've learned today. The title of the book is Pray Big, Learn to Pray Like an Apostle.

It's written by Alistair. And this book, Pray Big, will help you pray more consistently and with greater urgency, a practice that can be a challenge for so many of us. In the book, Alistair takes a close look at the prayers of the Apostle Paul for the Ephesian church. By examining how Paul prayed, how often he prayed, we can draw from his example to improve our own prayer life, to deepen our relationship with God. The book, Pray Big, will help you focus on who you're praying to and help you grasp the bigger picture of who you are and who God is. Request your copy of Pray Big.

It comes with a corresponding study guide and it's yours by request when you donate today to support the teaching you hear on this program. Visit our website truthforlife.org slash donate or call us at 888-588-7884. Now, let's join Alistair with a closing prayer. Gracious God, we stand on holy ground because we are able to look down through the corridor of time and see that from generation to generation, you have kept all of your promises and executed your warnings. And so we pray that tonight as we look out on what our week holds as we know it or as it will take us unexpectedly, that none of us may try as it were to go out and steer the vessel of our lives into the destination, but that we might be humbled to realize that only Christ may be the captain of our salvation, and only then he on the bridge of our lives may grant to us the security of resting in your love. Hear us, O God, as we cry to you. In Jesus' name, Amen. You know, the longer we live in the same place, the more comfortable we become, and we're also able to develop a sense of belonging to a community. But as Christians, we really don't belong here at all. Tomorrow, we'll find out why our alien status provides more than we can imagine. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life, where the Learning is for Living.