BEN F. VICK, JR.
I must confess from the outset that I do not know how God works in our lives today; however, I believe that he does because of the promises in his word. The word “providence” is used by Tertullus as he stood before Felix the governor to accuse Paul. The Greek word (πρόνοια) means “thoughtful planning to meet a need, forethought, foresight.” The English word “providence” is defined as (1) the care exercised by the Supreme Being over the universe; (2) God conceived as the power sustaining and guiding human destiny. The fact that God does not intervene in miraculous ways today does not exclude that he works in our lives today. Some would consider special providence as God’s intervening in the lives of saints. General providence would include God’s working in the lives of all men and nations.
Consider some Bible verses on providence: “And it shall come to pass, while my glory passeth by, that I will put thee in a clift of the rock, and will cover thee with my hand while I pass by.” (Exo. 33:22.)
“Be merciful unto me, O God, be merciful unto me: For my soul trusteth in thee: Yea, in the shadow of thy wings will I make my refuge, Until these calamities be overpast.” (Psa. 57:1.)
“For thou hast been a strength to the poor, A strength to the needy in his distress, A refuge from the storm, a shadow from the heat, When the blast of the terrible ones is as a storm against the wall.” (Isa. 25:4.)
“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!” (Matt. 23:37.)
“I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, From whence cometh my help. My help cometh from the Lord, Which made heaven and earth. He will not suffer thy foot to be moved: He that keepeth thee will not slumber. Behold, he that keepeth Israel Shall neither slumber nor sleep. The Lord is thy keeper: The Lord is thy shade upon thy right hand. The sun shall not smite thee by day, Nor the moon by night. The Lord shall preserve thee from all evil: He shall preserve thy soul. The Lord shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in From this time forth, and even for evermore.” (Psa. 121:1-8.)
“Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; And lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, And he shall direct thy paths.” (Prov. 3:5-6.)
“(For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.” (Matt. 6:32-33.)
“Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you.” (1 Pet. 5:7.)
“But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus.” (Phil. 4:19.)
“And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.” (Rom. 8:28.)
During the height of the Vietnam conflict a good sister told a preacher that she was thankful that God had spared her son’s life and brought him back safely to the United States. The preacher thought: What about this other sister over here whose son did not make it. Did God spare one and let the other one die? We must be careful what we attribute to God.
One of President Lincoln’s secretaries, John Hay, found and preserved a fragment of lines written by our 16th President in September of 1862. It was “not written to be seen of men.” Some of the thoughts expressed here were written after discouraging days of personal sorrow and military defeats. Some of these thoughts appeared in his Second Inaugural Address of 1865.
The will of God prevails. In great contests each party claims to act in accordance with the will of God. Both may be, and one must be, wrong. In the present civil war it is quite possible that God’s purpose is something different from the purpose of either party; and yet the human instrumentalities, working just as they do, are of the best adaptation to effect his purpose. I am almost ready to say that this is probably true; that God wills this contest, and wills that it shall not end yet. By his mere great power on the minds of the now contestants, he could have either saved or destroyed the Union without a human contest. Yet the contest began. And, having begun, he could give the final victory to either side any day. Yet the contest proceeds.
On the subject of special providence, Brother Larimore wrote:
With all my heart, I do believe Providence protects all who truly trust God and lovingly obey him, just as surely, certainly and constantly as Jehovah was ever the shield of Abraham, Peter and Paul. ‘Fear not, Abram: I am thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward.’ (Jehovah – Gen. 15:1.) ‘The angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear him, and delivereth them.’ (David – Ps. 34:7.) ‘He is a shield unto them who put their trust in him.’ (Solomon – Prov. 30:5.) ‘But out of them all the Lord delivered me.’ (Paul— 2 Tim. 3:11.)
Men may differ in opinion as to how, in what sense and to what extent, God – Jehovah – ‘is a shield unto them that put their trust in him; ‘ but that he is a shield unto those who put their trust in him is not within the realm of opinion, but is a question of faith, pure and simple; hence there can be no difference of sentiment on that subject – except that some may believe, some may not believe it and some may disbelieve it – and that’s the end of it.
Men may differ in opinion as to how ‘the angel of the Lord’ delivers faithful servants of the Lord from danger and from death; but that ‘the angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear him, and delivereth them,’ is not a question of opinion, but of faith; therefore they cannot differ about that – except that some may believe the Bible, while others may not believe it and others may disbelieve it – and that’s the end of that.
There may be debates and differences of opinion about how the Lord delivered Paul out of the ‘persecutions, afflictions,’ that came upon him ‘at Antioch, at Iconium, at Lystra;’ but when he, by the Spirit, says, ‘But out of them all the Lord delivered me,’ that settles that with those who believe the Bible. They accept as a matter of faith, not opinion, the fact, notwithstanding they may never understand the philosophy of it.
Just so, every trusting child of God, even though profoundly ignorant of the philosophy of special providence, may believe in special providence, nevertheless, simply because the Spirit teaches it. Faith is not knowledge, but ‘belief, trust, confidence.’ Faith accepts the statements of the Spirit, the testimony of the Spirit, the witness of the Spirit, not because of an ability to fathom the depths of the philosophy thereof; but because the Spirit, the Holy Spirit, the divine Spirit, the Spirit of the Lord, hath spoken. Faith that falters where philosophy fails and human reason rebels is not the faith that honors God, moves mountains or saves souls.
--Letters and Sermons of T. B. Larimore,
Vol. III, pp. 155-156.