Word of Salvation – July 2018
B.C.13 – God or Chance?
Sermon by Rev. John Westendorp
Bible readings: Psalm 104:24-35 & Luke 12:1-12
Introd: Anyone who does some serious thinking about the inequalities of life sooner or later faces the question:
Why do certain things happen to some people and not to others?
We all know some people for whom everything always goes well.
All they touch seems to turn to gold.
But there are others who have always been battlers and probably always will be.
They seem to lurch from one crisis to another.
Why is it that some folk are born with a silver spoon in their mouth…?
Why is it that others seem to attract disaster wherever they go…?
How can we explain what happens in life…. and especially those seeming inequalities?
Is there any explanation at all?
A] NEGATIVELY – NOT CHANCE OR FATE.
1. The answer many people give to such questions is simply: Fate! (eg. Stuart Diver – Thredbo survivor)
The fickle finger of fate dishes good out to one person… and bad things out to someone else.
Fate…! It is really the sum total of all the impersonal forces at work in the world.
It’s a common view that the forces of fate control your destiny and mine.
That’s what many people in our society today would have us believe.
Some people narrow this down a little further… they see fate as controlled by the stars and planets.
Fate is really in the movement of the earth in relation to other heavenly bodies.
However, regardless of what moves the fickle finger of fate there’s nothing that you or I can do about it.
What will be will be!
We are powerless to change it… all we can do is learn to live with it.
And so thousands of people religiously read their horoscopes in the daily papers.
Others prefer to speak more simply of chance.
The circumstances of life are just the result of an accidental combination of events.
And that accidental combination of chance events can result in good or bad.
So in ordinary, everyday conversation we hear a great deal about good luck and bad luck.
Joe had good luck because he won a fist full of dollars in last week’s Lotto.
And Mary had good luck because she got a promotion at work.
But Jim had bad luck and got booked for speeding.
And Sue had bad luck because she lost her car keys in the city.
No wonder that Australia is called the Lucky country. And in NZ it’s probably not much better.
For so many people everything can be explained in terms of the luck of the draw.
Chance… there’s no other explanation.
The interesting thing of course is that for many people Fate and Chance become religious forces in life.
Fate and Chance… spelled with capital “F” and capital “C”.
That’s what many people today see as guiding human events.
No wonder that we’ve become a nation of gamblers who will bet on anything.
2. Interestingly many who think that way do not always necessarily deny the existence of God.
Many have this outlook on life and yet… they still profess to believe in God.
In practice… life is determined by chance… or by fate…!
But ask them, “Do you think there is a God?” and, surprisingly, the answer is, “Yes!”
The problem is that their God is a God of the gaps.
God, for them, is a God who has chosen the way of non-involvement.
He made this world… or at least guided its formation by evolution
but then after He got it all up and running He withdrew…!
Now He merely looks on from a distance… as life runs on by itself.
The world is a little like an aeroplane flying on automatic pilot.
Only occasionally does the pilot interfere and make some course corrections.
It is like a piece of machinery that someone makes and sets in motion… a clockwork.
All it needs is a little winding up now and then… or a breakdown may need attention.
God made this world.
He built into it all the laws of nature…. so than now it runs by itself.
Only occasionally… when things go terribly wrong… does God step in to fix things.
God is like an absentee landlord… He owns it all… but He’s away for the present.
God exists… but he doesn’t really have too much to do with daily events here and now.
He’s only there for the really great crisis situations.
To fill the gaps… when we can’t explain anything any other way.
That view of God shapes the general outlook on life in our society today.
God is there… somewhere. But it’s fate and chance that really control our day by day affairs.
3. Over against that the Christian Church has always said a clear, No!
Those, who hold to the teaching of Scripture, firmly believe…
that nothing happens by CHANCE… that there is no such thing as FATE!
Those are only unbelieving attempts to give answers to the questions of life.
They are answers that leave God out of the equation
So Christians have always been reluctant to speak of ‘LUCK’. It’s not in our vocab.
Instead Christians maintain that nothing happens except by God’s will and by His permission.
God did not withdraw from His creation and
leave this cosmos to run on automatic pilot.
God is intimately involved; so much so that nothing at all can happen unless He wills it to be so.
That is a cornerstone of Biblical religion… it’s the clear testimony of Scripture.
Some earlier Christians believed that so strongly that they refused to play any games of chance.
Cards and dice were not permitted in their homes.
The reason was that they felt it was a denial that God literally is involved in all that happens.
Even in the fall of the dice or the cut of the cards.
I don’t want to suggest that games of chance are sinful.
But it at least bears thinking about… maybe we play them too readily and thoughtlessly.
The refusal of our ancestor was – in any case – a powerful witness…
that the providence of God extends to the smallest details… even the fall of the dice.
However there is an even more serious implication.
If life really is run by Chance and by Fate then there’s no room for the gospel anymore.
If God has chosen the way of non-involvement…
then there can be no incarnation… no coming of God to us in the person of Jesus Christ.
If God has put the world on automatic pilot why should He intervene for our salvation?
The teaching of the providence of God… His involvement in the details of life…
is clearly taught in Scripture and it is a teaching that is central to the gospel.
B] POSITIVELY – A LOVING FATHER’S CARE.
1. When the B.C. outlines what it sees as Biblical teaching on this matter it uses some very strong words.
Blunt terms… that allows for no exceptions. Listen again to those words from Article 13:
…Nothing happens in this world without His appointment.
Nothing can befall us by chance but by the direction of our most gracious and heavenly Father.
Without His will and permission nothing can hurt us.
That is putting the case for God’s involvement in this world very strongly.
In fact – to drive home to us how detailed God’s involvement is it gives us two examples:
the hairs of our head …and the sparrows.
God’s involvement and concern is even down to those minute details.
Of course our confession didn’t make up these examples of God’s detailed involvement in life.
It simply wanted to be Biblical and so it quoted the words of Jesus from Luke 12.
Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yet not one of them is forgotten by God.
Indeed the very hairs of our head are all numbered.
Jesus Himself taught us that God concerns Himself with the minutest details of life.
2. One of our problems is that today we live in a scientific age.
We have become used to having purely physical explanations for everything that happens.
And so we don’t often think of things in terms of God’s Providence.
Let me give you an example. If I was to push the Bible off the pulpit no one doubts that it will fall.
We have a scientific explanation. We call that the law of gravity.
And that law will have its way with this Bible if I push it.
We’re not particularly inclined to think that God is making that Bible fall to the ground.
In other areas or life too we are used to thinking in terms of cause and effect. Natural laws.
My receding hair-line has a cause… but I don’t often think of God as the cause.
Rather I put it down to the very natural process of aging.
When the cat catches a sparrow I rarely think of God’s involvement.
The cat is simply acting on its instincts… it’s hungry and kills to feed.
And yet Luke 12 shows us a deeper, underlying issue: God is at work in His creation.
So you and I ought to have a far greater sense of God’s involvement in all these things.
The laws of nature are simply God’s normal ways of working in this world.
…the aging process that gives you grey hairs …the instinct that makes the cat kill a sparrow
they are all part and parcel of God at work in His world.
That doesn’t mean we can’t talk anymore about LAWS OF NATURE or INSTINCT.
But we as Christians ought always to recognise a sovereign God behind it all and upholding it all.
We become particularly aware of that when our sovereign God at times sets aside those normal laws;
Times when He works and does things in miraculous and abnormal ways.
But either way… whether through natural laws or apart from natural laws… God is at work.
And the more we are aware of that the greater will be our sense of awe at God’s greatness and glory.
3. All this was meant to be a real comfort and encouragement to us as Christian people.
That is actually why Jesus spoke those words in Luke 12. Notice the context:
Jesus was talking about the trials that His followers would undergo.
Times of persecution would come for the Christian church.
And against that background Jesus tells us we don’t need to worry or be anxious.
Our Father’s care extends even to the hairs of our head and to the sparrows.
And as Psalm 104 so beautifully points out – it extends to every area of creation.
So both Scripture and Confession make this quite clear:
We are not to think of God’s Providence as something abstract.
Nor should we turn Providence again into a kind of Fate… or Destiny… something impersonal.
Rather all this is part and parcel of God’s role as our divine Parent.
He has a fatherly care for all His creatures.
And He exercises that loving care in all the minute details of your life and mine.
Especially is that detailed kind of fatherly care, directed at us as Christians.
This providential care is especially for those whom God has saved thru the death of His Son.
We – above all others – are the objects of this loving care of the Father.
And the more we realise that the more we will be filled with love for our Father God.
We will want to trust His Providential care all the more.
C] THE PROBLEM – WHAT ABOUT SIN AND EVIL.
1. Today it’s not hard to turn these words of comfort and encouragement into a problem.
A problem that has troubled many people…!
So that words which were meant to help us have become instead a stumbling block.
That happens when we look at it in this way:
if your hair falling out is taken up in God’s will…
and if the cat killing the sparrows is taken up in God’s plan
then isn’t God responsible too for sin and for evil?
Or let’s put it a bit more bluntly:
If nothing happens without the permission and will of God
then what about the gas chambers and concentration camps of World War II?
What about Hiroshima… and the killings in Rwanda… the twin towers in New York?
And what do we then say to a mother of four with incurable cancer?
It doesn’t seem to be much comfort to say: Well, that kidney disease that you have is God’s will.
Many find that a terrible thing to say.
How can a God of love even allow those terrible things to happen?
And if everything that happens is permitted by God then isn’t God ultimately to blame?
2. At this point we have to be very careful.
Our human understanding of the ways of God is very limited.
Neither has the Lord seen fit to explain everything… or to justify His actions to us.
The B.C. has a relevant warning at this point.
We will not curiously inquire further than our capacity will admit of
but with the greatest humility and reverence
adore the righteous judgments of Got which are hid from us. (Also: Psalm 131)
We are to be content to limit ourselves to what God has revealed in His Word.
And when we do that we notice two things said very clearly in the Bible.
OTOH Scripture is very clear that God is not the source of evil – God is good.
Instead Scripture stresses the accountability of the creatures God has made.
God made men and angels free beings.
He gave them freedom of choice but made them accountable for their deeds
And the Bible stresses repeatedly that accountability.
So we must never blame God for humanity’s own sinfulness and perverseness.
Today if we want to look at someone to blame for war and tragedy and for broken lives.
Then we have to start first of all with ourselves.
Human beings are greedy and loveless… and that leads to theft and murder.
Our impatience and selfishness leads to death on the roads..!
The crookedness of power-hungry leaders is the root of war.
We need to take full responsibility for our sins before we talk about God’s role in it all.
God is not the author of sin nor can He be charged with wrong committed.
3. OTOH we also have to admit that somehow all these things too are included in God’s sovereign will.
In some mysterious way that we can’t understand God includes them in His plans.
Sin and evil happen… and they happen by His permission.
In fact when you and I sin… we do that with the strength God gives to us.
That is a great mystery we will never ever fully fathom.
God is in no way responsible for sin and evil… and yet He makes room for it in His plans.
God even allows in His will that we as free beings are able to rebel against our Maker.
But again – let’s not miss the words of comfort – even in this.
That somehow all this negative stuff… even what God permits in the way of sin and evil…
is used by the Lord to further His purposes and somehow bring Him glory.
Tonight I could mention many examples of how God has at times brought good out of evil.
I could mention examples from the life of many Christians.
How people were brought closer to God thru pain and brokenness.
How great things happened despite much suffering and evil.
Let me limit myself to a Biblical example: the example of Joseph in the O.T.
Think of how he suffered so much hurt and rejection and imprisonment from his siblings.
But Joseph himself said to his brothers in Genesis 50:
You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done…!
Today if you doubt that God can make sin and evil into something positive and wonderful…
then I invite you to think of the cross of Jesus Christ.
Here was the world’s greatest evil – the death of the sinless Son of God.
And it became the greatest good – the salvation of all God’s people… renewal for this world.
A poem: This is the True God, makes very clear that God’s actions are behind everything:
His holy fingers formed the bough, / where grew the thorns that crowned His brow;
The nails that pierced His hands were mined / In secret places He designed.
He made the forest whence there sprung / the tree, on which His body hung,
He died upon a cross of wood, / Yet made the hill on which it stood.
The sun which hid from Him its face / By His decree was poised in space;
The skies that darkened o’er His head / By Him above the earth were spread.
The spear which spilt His precious blood / Was tempered in the fires of God;
The grave in which His form was laid / Was hewn in rocks His hands had made.
In Jesus we see especially that fate and chance explain nothing… certainly not suffering.
The only way in which you and I can ever make sense of life…
and especially of the evil in this world and God’s own relationship to it
is to keep on looking to Jesus who bore such evil so that thru Him God might save His people.
So let’s never be afraid of anything… for Jesus’ sake you are worth more than many sparrows. Amen
BC stands for Basic Christianity. What are the fundamentals of the faith?
BC also stands for Belgic Confession – a document in which the Christian church (in a time of great persecution) spelled out the basics of what she believes.
When Christianity is a mile wide and an inch deep it needs to grasp again the basics of the faith and confess them in a world where the faith is increasingly under attack.
Those who drew up the BC declared that they were ready to obey the government in all lawful things, but that they would “offer their backs to stripes, their tongues to knives, their mouths to gags and their whole bodies to the fire” rather than deny the truth expressed in this confession.