The God in Charge of History

We’re going to read from the Bible, in Genesis chapter 50 and in Exodus chapter 1—Genesis 50 at verse 22 and then Exodus chapter 1. The Scriptures record that Joseph finally dies:

“So Joseph remained in Egypt, he and his father’s house. Joseph lived 110 years. And Joseph saw Ephraim’s children of the third generation. The children also of Machir the son of Manasseh were counted as Joseph’s own. And Joseph said to his brothers, ‘I am about to die, but God will visit you and bring you up out of this land to the land that he swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.’ Then Joseph made the sons of Israel swear, saying, ‘God will surely visit you, and you shall carry up my bones from here.’ So Joseph died, being 110 years old. They embalmed him, and he was put in a coffin in Egypt.”

And “These are the names of the sons of Israel who came to Egypt with Jacob, each with his household: Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah, Issachar, Zebulun, and Benjamin, Dan and Naphtali, Gad and Asher. All the descendants of Jacob were seventy persons; Joseph was already in Egypt. Then Joseph died, and all his brothers and all that generation. But the people of Israel were fruitful and increased greatly; they multiplied and grew exceedingly strong, so that the land was filled with them.

“Now there arose a new king over Egypt, who did not know Joseph. And he said to his people, ‘Behold, the people of Israel are too many and too mighty for us. Come, let us deal shrewdly with them, lest they multiply, and, if war breaks out, they join our enemies and fight against us and escape from the land.’ Therefore they set taskmasters over them to afflict them with heavy burdens. They built for Pharaoh store cities, Pithom and Raamses. But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and the more they spread abroad. And the Egyptians were in dread of the people of Israel. So they ruthlessly made the people of Israel work as slaves and made their lives bitter with hard service, in mortar and brick, and in all kinds of work in the field. In all their work they ruthlessly made them work as slaves.”

Amen.

I invite you to turn to the Bible with me, to the section that we read. I should warn you that there’s a long introduction to this. I hope that I will get to the text. I was asked this morning—somewhat facetiously, somebody said, “Will I need my Bible this morning?” And I said, “Well, yes, but not necessarily for the first ten minutes.”

So, let us ask God’s help as we turn to the Bible:

Lord, we come humbly before you. We pray that the Spirit of God will illumine to us the truth of your Word so that we might see who Jesus is and why he’s come and what it means to know and love and follow him. To this end we seek you. In Christ’s name. Amen.

For many people—actually, for more than we would really want to countenance—the journey through life is regarded by them as simply a chancy business. They get up on a Monday morning, and they go through the routine that awaits them in the week, and they would, if pressed, have to say that they’re not sure that there is, beyond simply the structure of their existence, any rhyme or reason to why they’re here and what they’re doing. For such people, history is simply the lucky or the unlucky spin of the wheel. Such individuals are living their lives as if it was not Jeopardy! but Wheel of Fortune, never knowing where it would stop, never knowing what it would mean, never knowing if there were prizes or if it was, unfortunately, failure.

This is not something that people necessarily wear on a baseball cap or begin a new Monday morning announcing: “This is how I’m feeling about things.” But if we listen carefully, if we observe, we will discover that the view that men and women have of the way the world has come into being and the way in which it is framed and functions will be borne out in the things that they listen to, the plays they attend, and the songs that they sing.

And that is why literature, the arts are often a fair mirror of the expressions of people’s conviction in this regard—so that, for example, Shakespeare provides, especially in his tragedies, many expressions of this kind of thinking. In Macbeth, after the death of Lady Macbeth, when Shakespeare puts a soliloquy into the lips of Macbeth, you may recall from school, as I do, that he begins,

Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
[Life is] but a … shadow, a poor player
[Who] struts and frets his hour upon the stage
…. It[’s] a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.[1]

“Have a good day!” It doesn’t work, does it?

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, of course, are featured in Hamlet. And Tom Stoppard in 1966 introduced a play at the Edinburgh festival of the arts—in fact, at the fringe of that Edinburgh Festival—and his play is simply entitled Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. And if you have seen the play or if you have observed the movie, you will recall the fact that it begins with the two of them flipping coins and betting on whether it will come down as heads or tails. And in the play, Rosencrantz wins ninety-two times in a row. He guesses correctly. Guildenstern says this can’t be the case, because the laws of probability argue against this ever possibly happening. And as the play unfolds, what Stoppard is doing is actually introducing to us as an audience the notion that life is random—that there is no overarching, overruling framework within which we exist and proceed and finally die.

Stephen Hawking, the cosmologist who made great gains, apparently, in the world of physics, particularly for his explanations of the black holes in the universe, about which I know absolutely nothing—I mean, I’ve run my car into a few black holes in the universe, but not the kind that Stephen Hawking was on about—but Hawking did not have a framework for his own existence. This is what he said on one occasion: “If there is no God”—and that’s, of course, what he believed—“if there is no God and we have evolved by chance through millions of years, then everything that happens, whether good or bad, must be viewed as simply the result of random, pitiless indifference. From this perspective,” he says, “to ask why is not only meaningless; it’s irrelevant.”

If “life is a cabaret, old chum,”[2] and we’ve actually stayed too long at the fair, and we have no idea what’s going on, we’re not alone in this universe. The Christian, of course, is a radically different person. When Paul writes to the church at Rome after he’s laid down all the doctrinal foundations that have run all the way through and then into 9, 10, and 11 with the question of God’s purpose for Israel, he begins Romans chapter 12, you will recall, by the exhortation, “I beseech you, therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies as a living sacrifice to God, wholly acceptable to him, which is your reasonable service of spiritual worship.” He then goes on and says, “Do not be conformed to the things of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind”[3]—so that when we come to trust in Christ, when we cast ourselves upon his mercy, when we embrace him in his identity as Savior, Lord, and King, then the process of transformation is rational. It involves the way we think and the way we view everything.

The story of the Bible is the story of the provision of God for those made in his image.

And so, in direct contrast to what we’ve just been describing, the Christian, with their Bibles open, believes that God is the Alpha; he’s the Omega; he’s the beginning and the end. The Christian believes, as God speaks through the prophet in Isaiah 48, that God laid the foundation of the earth. In fact, he says, “My hand laid the foundation of the earth, and my right hand [laid the foundation of the universe].”[4] It is this conviction which then gave the hymn writer the opportunity to begin the hymn, “How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord, is made for your faith in his excellent Word”[5]—so that we, in Jesus, view everything in a vastly different way.

What we’re saying is this: that the Christian believer actually understands the doctrine of providence. You say, “Well, I’m not sure I understand what you mean by saying that.” Well, the doctrine of providence, if you like, takes its name from the encounter described in Genesis chapter 22, where Abraham is told to offer up his son Isaac. And in that context, Isaac, the son, says to Abraham, “Well, we’ve got the wood, and we’ve got the fire going, and we’re in pretty good shape, but we’re just missing a sacrifice.” And Abraham says, “The Lord will provide.”[6] And the story of the Bible is the story of the provision of God for those made in his image, who are alienated from him and in need of the provision of the one who will take the place that we deserve and who will grant to us a privileged forgiveness that we don’t deserve. And that doctrine of providence underpins everything.

Louis Berkhof’s summary of it is as good as any. He says providence is the “continued exercise of the divine energy whereby the Creator preserves all His creatures, is operative in all that comes to pass in the world, and directs all things to their appointed end.”[7] Now, if that seems a bit of a mouthful, let’s just go to the most quoted verse of anybody who knows their Bible in relationship to these things, which is, of course, Romans 8:28, where it is routine for people to say to one another in the circumstances of life, “Well, we can be sure of this: ‘We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.’”[8] And the comprehensive nature of that is inescapable: “And we know that in all things”—not in some things, not in most things, not in understandable things, not in manageable things, but in all things!

If we were to sit for a while and say, “Let’s just call out the extent of the providential overruling of God,” what a list we could come up with! Here’s just a few.

God’s providential control is, first of all, over the entire universe. The entire universe. So cosmologists who start without a creator God actually start in an impoverished place.

The providence of God is over the affairs of the nations. Over the affairs of the nations. So whether our president goes to Turkey or goes to Syria, whether Zelenskyy shows up and Putin joins him, whether the prime minister of Great Britain has really got anything worthwhile to say in any of these conversations, and so on, the notion is that somehow or another, we are on tenterhooks to see just exactly what is going to emerge from this—unless, of course, we believe that the providence of God extends over the affairs of the nations.

The providence of God extends over the day of my birth, the living of my life, and the day of my death—and yours too. For all the days of our lives were written in his book before one of them came to be.[9] That’s vastly different from saying, “Well, you know, we just spin the wheel. You never know when your number is up.” Well, we don’t know, but God knows.

God is the unseen controller of all of history and all circumstances within history.

The providence of God covers all of our successes but also all of our failures—so, the times in our lives when we’re able to look back and say, “Well, that was pretty good; I ran it in a good time,” and the other times when we look back in our lives and say, “I made a horrible mess of that. I wish I could have that time over again.” Well, did we somehow squeak out into the corner, out from underneath his providential care? No, because his providence extends over both our successes and our failures.

It extends over matters that are seemingly irrelevant or insignificant. It extends over seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night. It covers the great twenty-first preoccupation with climatology. God is the unseen controller of all of history and all circumstances within history.

I was at a church yesterday morning, speaking at a conference, and they were very robust. In fact, the singing was such that I almost had to wear a crash helmet or something. It was quite amazing. But the amount of feedback that I got without asking for it was quite remarkable. And so, when I said all of these things to you, I thought, “There’s probably somebody who’s able to say amen at least to one of them,” but apparently not.

Here’s the facts: God, the loving God, is working his purposes out in his way and not in our way. And the problem that most of us have is because we want them worked out in our way and in our time. He is the God who makes everything beautiful in his time,[10] unfolding his purposes in his way. And therefore, it is incumbent upon us as we live our lives, as we begin a day, to simply acknowledge that reality: “You are God Almighty, and I’m not.” And God makes it clear when he says through the prophet,

For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
 neither are your ways my ways ….
For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
 so are my ways higher than your ways
 and my thoughts than your thoughts.[11]

Now, we routinely remind ourselves here at Parkside that the main things are the plain things—that the things that are necessary for us in order to know what it means to know God, to discover the wonder of his goodness and grace to us in Jesus, that as we read our Bibles, those things are main and plain. But the Westminster Confession also states that not all things in Scripture are equally plain in themselves or equally plain to all.[12]

Now, I don’t know about you, but that’s a big encouragement to me—especially as somebody who’s constantly confronted with questions: “Oh, well, you must know the answer to this.” It’s like in Fiddler on the Roof, when they go to ask, you know, the rabbi: “Oh, we wanted to check with you.” Do you know how many times I have to say, “I’m sorry, I don’t know the answer to that question”? Sometimes I just make one up, because I’m so embarrassed. Grandchildren do it to you. My daughter called me a month ago, five weeks ago, and she said, “Your grandson wants to know what age Adam was when God made him.” So I said, “Tell him he was twenty-one.” And so she did. So both he and I are as clueless as each other. We don’t know.

What language did they speak in Eden? We don’t know. What language will we speak in heaven? We don’t know. We know all we need to know in order to know God as he has made himself known in Jesus. But not all things that God has done, is doing, and will do are equally plain, and they’re not equally plain to everybody. So that is why, for example, the psalmist says, speaking of the amazing exodus from Egypt in the transportation through the waters of the Red Sea, “Your [path] was through the sea …; yet your footprints were unseen.”[13] “We could see this, but we couldn’t see that.”

John Murray, the late professor that I quote frequently—partly because he’s Scottish and partly because he said so many really good things—on one occasion, addressing providence, he says, “The providence of God is often a dark and impenetrable abyss to us.”[14] “The providence of God is often a dark and impenetrable abyss.” In other words, when we look down into it, we cannot unravel exactly what is going on. And it is the very sovereignty of God that provides security even in the context of mystery.

Very well then. That was the long introduction—part one. Those of you who’ve been around for a while will perhaps recall that when we began together in 1983, as we started to study the Bible together as a church family, we decided we would do so in the company of Nehemiah. We thought we would do that in order to consider what it means to do God’s work in God’s way. I went looking earlier this morning to see if I still had the talk. Spurgeon says, “Keep your old sermons to weep over,” and so I’ve been doing that for a long time now, so I have to keep a hanky with me.

But yeah, I have it here. Here it is. I said to the congregation as we began, I wasn’t sure how we should begin this time together. And when we went to church the other Sunday, we had moved into the area but hadn’t gone to the church except to visit another church. So we went to church, and as we sat down and calmed ourselves, I actually said to the Lord from my heart, you know, “Perhaps there’s some way that you can give me a word from yourself, you know, that would give me direction as to what I should do in the first series of studies.” And apparently, he did, because the fellow, the minister announced that his subject for the morning was, his title was, “Flee to the Hills.” And so I said to myself, “Well, maybe that is the word, but I don’t think so.” And I’m glad that I didn’t.

Not all things that God has done, is doing, and will do are equally plain, and they’re not equally plain to everybody.

When we’ve studied through the Old Testament in particular—Abraham, Joseph, Ruth, Esther, David—those Old Testament studies have probably been the biggest stretch to me and perhaps have been the best of help to all of us. Because every time we have gone back into the Old Testament, we have done so in the awareness of what Paul says when he writes in 1 Corinthians 10 and then in Romans 15. He says that all these things—referring to what has gone on before—all these things that have happened, and happened to them, he says, were written down for our instruction so that through endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.[15] And the unifying feature, I think, in all of these studies was the awareness that we had of the providence of God being displayed in the unfolding story of the people of God. And so, having begun our journey in the presence of Nehemiah, I decided I want to end our journey in the presence of Moses. I’m going to begin a series that I will never finish. But that’s okay. Someone else can pick it up, if they choose.

It begins, actually, in Genesis, although we’re looking at Exodus. Exodus, you will perhaps know, means a going out. It means a departure. And you say, “Well, that’s very self-serving. Just ’cause you’re going out, you thought you would have something that mentioned that.” No, no. Not for a moment! The going out is the going out of the people of God. You have to fast-forward in the book—that the great, amazing expedition that takes place as they emerge from Egypt, that’s the whole point of it.

And in fact, Exodus is as significant a turning point in the story of God’s unfolding drama as is the book of Matthew as we come to the beginning of the New Testament. And we do know this (so we just make sure that we’re not in doubt): that through Moses, God redeems his people from slavery, from bondage in Egypt, in such a way that that dramatic intervention by God prefigures what he then does in the Lord Jesus, who provides eternal redemption for those who trust in him.

And Exodus begins, as I pointed out—although most of you will have missed it—it actually begins in Hebrew with the word “and.” But you will notice that here it begins, “These are the names.” That’s the heading in Hebrew: “These are the names.” But the “and” is there, linking it to what has gone before, to Genesis.

Abraham’s grandson—namely, Jacob—had been directed to move southwards to Egypt. If you’d like to follow, let me give you just a couple of pointers. Genesis 46—you can read it here: “So Israel took his journey with all that he had.” He “came to Beersheba. He “offered sacrifices to God,” to his Father. “And God spoke to Israel”—that is, to Jacob: “‘Jacob, Jacob.’ And [Jacob] said, ‘Here I am.’ Then he said, ‘I am God, the God of your father. Do[n’t] be afraid to go down to Egypt, for there I will make you into a great nation. I myself will go down with you ….’”[16] “I will make you…”

Now, it’s important that we understand this: “I am God. Here is my command. Here is my promise. And here is what I’m going to do.” God had already made this great covenant promise to Abraham. And as we continue our way through Genesis and on, we discover that God continually renews his promise that he is creating a people that are his very own that will be brought to completion finally at the day of Christ’s return.

Now, when we understand that, you will notice that in verse 8 of 46, if you even look there: “Now these are the names of the descendants of Israel.” Then you look forward to chapter 1 of Exodus: “These are the names of the sons of Israel.” You see what Moses is doing? He’s saying the same group that are described in Genesis are the ones who have arrived in Egypt.

Now, you need to do your own homework on this. I can’t work all the way through it. But when you get into chapter 48, for example, you discover that Jacob then is making the departure—not the departure from Canaan to Egypt but the departure from life to death. Verse 21 of 48: “Then Israel said to Joseph, ‘Behold, I[’m] about to die, but God will be with you and will bring you again to the land of your fathers. Moreover, I have given to you rather than to your brothers one mountain slope that I took from the hand of the Amorites with my sword and with my bow.’”

It only occurs to me now, having read that three times in short order: Jacob hasn’t changed much, in some ways, from what he was as a dad. What was it that he gave to Joseph that he didn’t give to anybody else of the brothers? It was a coat of many colors. And that created a real hullabaloo in the family and beyond! And now he is at the end, and he says, “And by the way, I’ve given to you rather than to your brothers…” Well, we can do with that what we choose.

And then he dies. And that’s chapter 50. And the promise that God made, that Joseph would close his eyes, actually comes true: “Joseph fell on his father’s face and [he] wept over him and [he] kissed him.”[17] And they did what was necessary.

Now, Joseph, of course, as we come to the end of Genesis, is confronted by those same brothers, who are now, after the death of their father, concerned that Joseph may treat them in response to all the evil that they had done him. Because, after all, they had hated him. They sold him into slavery. They had made his life a wretched misery in many ways. And when they were finally reunited, they were still such untrusting characters that they couldn’t believe that, given the duplicity of their own hearts, that Joseph would be true to what he said.

And that is why when they broached the subject with him, his brothers “came and fell down before him.” And “Joseph said to them, ‘Do[n’t] fear, for am I in the place of God? As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today.’”[18] The providence of God, sweeping the animosity, the evil, the subterfuge of the brothers into his overarching plan to make sure that Joseph would be in position to provide the role of a savior in the impoverishment that was then represented in the land in which his father and his brothers lived.

So, they all get there, and then they all die. Joseph died, all his brothers, and all that generation. That’s what happens. One out of one dies. Eventually, we look over our shoulders, and we see that those who were present are no longer present. But it’s all apparently going very well. Verse 7: “The people of Israel were fruitful.” They “increased greatly; they multiplied.” They were “exceedingly strong,” and they were filling the place. Well, of course, this is what God had promised through Abraham back in Genesis 15. So you might say, “So far, so good.”

But then you’ve got verse 8. You see, this is the story of our lives, isn’t it? You’re going along for a while, and you’re resting in the provision of God, and perhaps the sun is smiling on you. You feel that the wind is at your back; it’s not at your face. And all of a sudden, you turn around a corner, and… And you go, “Wait a minute! Where did this come from? I thought you were a providential God. I thought you were the multiplying God. I thought you were the providing God. I thought you were the one that made everything really great. And now it’s really rotten!”

That’s what it says: “There arose a new king over Egypt, who did not know Joseph.” I don’t think that necessarily means he didn’t know there was a Joseph, but he didn’t know the Joseph story. He didn’t know that the people had been there as invited guests. He didn’t know that a previous pharaoh had said, “Hey, settle in Goshen. It’s a nice place. And enjoy yourself!”[19] He didn’t know that stuff. And even if he did know it, he didn’t care.

Incidentally, you don’t get Genesis 50, like, on a Friday and Exodus 1 on the following Saturday. There’s a period of about four hundred years here that is unfolding in this dramatic story.

So, so far, so good: verse 7. It’s all falling apart: verse 8. “He said to the people”—that’s the king (incidentally, we don’t know his name; his name’s not recorded)—“‘Behold, the people of Israel are too many, they’re too mighty, and frankly, it’s too risky having them here.’” In other words, the problem of immigration has been going on since time immemorial. Nations have always had the complexity of “What are we going to do if we have an influx of people from outside who don’t share our convictions?” and so on. And this was the response of this pharaoh, the king. He said, “Well, we’ll just have to make sure that we set taskmasters over them”—verse 11. Why? Well, “to afflict them”—“afflict them with heavy burdens.”

“God, didn’t you bring us here?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, what about the heavy burden thing?”

Notice: “They built for Pharaoh store cities, Pithom and Raamses.” Let’s remind ourselves: We’re not dealing here with mythology. We’re dealing here with geography and history. If you have been to Egypt and you’ve seen the canals or the pyramids, then Exodus chapter 1 had a part in that process—that God, in the mystery of his providence, in moving peoples around in the world, moves people there to provide these amazing things so that National Public Television can put advertisements on encouraging you to go to Egypt on vacation so that you can see the mighty wonders of the world.

Good idea! Who put them there? Well, in some measure, these poor souls put them there. Did they enjoy it? No, they didn’t enjoy it. But the fact is that the strategy that Egypt planned was working against them. “The more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and the more they spread abroad.” It’s so good, isn’t it? You see, because Egypt really represents… It represents evil in this regard. Egypt represents the city of man. The people represent the city of God. And the more the city of man… Incidentally, what does it say there? “Come, let us deal shrewdly with them.” That’s the same thing you find in Genesis 11, where they all get together and say, “Come, let us build a city that will reach up to the sky.”[20] “We’ll be able to take care of things here by ourselves.” And God comes down and spoils their language and scatters them.

And here you have the same thing. You have the same thing in mainland China, you know, in the ’60s and Mao Tse-tung and the Little Red Book: “We will chain the churches closed. We will shut this thing down entirely.” And the more they endeavored to do so, the more the people of God multiplied, and they spread abroad, and “the Egyptians were in dread of the people.” That could be translated accurately as “They were in dread of the people,” and it could also be translated “And they loathed the people.” They loathed them. And “so they ruthlessly made the people of Israel work as slaves.” They “made their lives bitter with hard service,” both in construction work and in agricultural work. And “in all their work they ruthlessly made them work as slaves.”

Now, worse is to follow, but we won’t go there this morning. Worse is to follow. But here’s what I want us to notice: In this circumstance, God does not come down to explain himself. In fact, God is not mentioned until verse 20. He’s there all the time, but he’s not mentioned until verse 20. The first chapter of Exodus might be described as a series of experiences without explanation. A series of experiences without explanation. You say, “Well, that’s interesting. It’s so long ago and far away. Why would we even care this morning?”

Well, first of all, because of what we said: that Paul said it was written for our instruction so that through endurance and the encouragement of the Scripture we might have hope. That’s the first thing. But the other thing is that if you go to the book of James, his letter of James, and you look there… Nobody’s looking there, but that’s okay. If you go there and look there—you should look there, ’cause you need to check and see whether what I’m about to tell you is actually there—James addresses his readers as the twelve tribes of Israel scattered through the Dispersion.[21] What does he possibly mean by that? He means that the people of God are the descendants of the purpose of God to put together a people that are his very own. And so the church actually—the people of God—are represented as scattered throughout the nations.

And in doing that, God has operated in such a way that just as these people lived life in the midst of it all, unable to answer all the questions for themselves, so, if we are honest as Christians, the story of our earthly pilgrimage is not a straight line, no matter how we try to make it so. It’s a series of twists and turns and bends. There surely are days of—the thing that we sang about, days of delight and so on. But there are dark days, there are unanswered questions, there are hardships, and there are sorrows. And the explanation of those actual incidents may never be ours until eternity. All of us will take experiences, disappointments, pain, unanswered questions into eternity with us. So what God does for them he does for us. God came to his servants, and he told them, “This is my plan.” That’s Genesis 15. He also told them that all would be well in the end. And he also assured them that what he was doing he was doing for their good.

You see, for these people in this context, heaven was silent. I mean, you shouldn’t say things like this, but, I mean, if they met one another, they’d say, “What in the heaven’s going on here? I hear nothing from heaven. I’ve got nothing from here, and earth is threatening me. This is breaking my back. This is interfering with my life. I never expected that things would possibly be this way.”

Hostility, mystery, and ultimate security. You see, what this story helps us to get to is this: that we’re able to say that “faced with trials on every hand, I know the outcome is secure.”[22] That the strategy has to be as for these people: They brought what they did not know or understand into the light of what they did know and understand. That it is okay for me to say, “I do not know, but I know that God knows.” It’s okay to say, “I do not know, but I do know that God knows.” That’s why Jesus says the same thing, doesn’t he? “Why are you guys so anxious about this stuff? Your heavenly Father knows.”[23] He knows.

That’s why… And I’m sure it must have been somebody that was very good created the poem that is also very familiar, and with this I end:

My life is but a weaving
Between my God and me.
I cannot choose the colors
He weaves steadily.

Ofttimes he weaveth sorrow,
And I, in foolish pride,
Forget he sees the upper
And I the underside.

Not till the loom is silent
And the shuttles cease to fly
Will God unroll the canvas
And reveal the reason why.

The dark threads are as needful
In the Weaver’s skillful hand
As the threads of gold and silver
In the pattern he has planned.

He knows, he loves, he cares;
Nothing this truth can dim.
He gives the very best to those
Who leave the choice to him.[24]

This is a much easier message for those of us who have not received in the last week a cancer diagnosis. This is a much easier message for someone who has not lost a child in stillbirth. This is a much easier message when the band’s playing and the troops are marching. But let’s be honest: Most of our lives are marked by quiet desperation—that if people could actually uncover our hearts and see us as we are, then together we would marvel that God loves us to the extent that he loves us and that he never causes his child a needless tear, that he is too wise to make mistakes, and he is too kind ever to be cruel. And although we might not know, he knows.

Father, thank you for your Word. Teach us what it means to believe what we believe. Teach us to not only learn to say Romans 8:28 but to try and live in the light of its truth: that you are in charge of all things, all time, all places. Help us to this end, we pray. For Christ’s sake. Amen.

[1] William Shakespeare, Macbeth, 5.5.

[2] Fred Ebb, “Cabaret” (1966).

[3] Romans 12:1–2 (paraphrased).

[4] Isaiah 48:13 (ESV).

[5] “How Firm a Foundation” (1787).

[6] Genesis 22:7–8 (paraphrased).

[7] Louis Berkhof,Systematic Theology(Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1939, 1941), 166.

[8] Romans 8:28 (NIV).

[9] See Psalm 139:16.

[10] See Ecclesiastes 3:11.

[11] Isaiah 55:8–9 (ESV).

[12] The Westminster Confession of Faith 1.7.

[13] Psalm 77:19 (ESV).

[14] “The Mystery of Providence,” in Collected Writings of John Murray, vol. 3, Life; Sermons; Reviews (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1982), 164.

[15] See Romans 15:4.

[16] Genesis 46:1–4 (ESV).

[17] Genesis 50:1 (ESV).

[18] Genesis 50:18–20 (ESV).

[19] Genesis 47:6 (paraphrased).

[20] Genesis 11:4 (paraphrased).

[21] See James 1:1.

[22] Stuart Townend and Keith Getty, “O Church, Arise” (2004). Lyrics lightly altered.

[23] See Matthew 6:25–34.

[24] Grant Colfax Tullar, “The Weaver.” Paraphrased.