By E. M. Bounds
PRAYER AND DIVINE PROVIDENCE
PRAYER and the Divine providence are closely
related. They stand in close companionship. They cannot possibly be separated.
So closely connected are they that to deny one is to abolish the other. Prayer
supposes a providence, while providence is the result of and belongs to prayer.
All answers to prayer are but the intervention of the providence of God in the
affairs of men. Providence has to do specially with praying people. Prayer,
providence and the Holy Spirit are a trinity, which cooperate with each other
and are in perfect harmony with one another. Prayer is but the request of man
for God through the Holy Spirit to interfere in behalf of him who
prays. What is termed providence is the Divine superintendence over earth
and its affairs. It implies gracious provisions which Almighty God makes for all
His creatures, animate and inanimate, intelligent or otherwise. Once admit that
God is the Creator and Preserver of all men, and concede that He is wise and
intelligent, and logically we are driven to the conclusion that Almighty God has
a direct superintendence of those whom He has created and whom He preserves in
being. In fact creation and preservation suppose a superintending providence.
What is called Divine providence is simply Almighty God governing the world for
its best interests, and overseeing everything for the good of
mankind. Men talk about a "general providence" as separate from a
"special providence." There is no general providence but what is made up of
special providences. A general supervision on the part of God supposes a special
and individual supervision of each person, yea, even every creature, animal and
all alike. God is everywhere, watching, superintending, overseeing,
governing everything in the highest interest of man, and carrying forward His
plans and executing His purposes in creation and redemption. He is not an
absentee God. He did not make the world with all that is in it, and turn it over
to so-called natural laws, and then retire into the secret places of the
universe having no regard for it or for the working of His laws. His hand is on
the throttle. The work is not beyond His control. Earth's inhabitants and its
affairs are not running independent of Almighty God. Any and all
providences are special providences, and prayer and this sort of providences
work hand in hand. God's hand is in everything. None are beyond Him nor beneath
His notice. Not that God orders everything which comes to pass. Man is still a
free agent, but the wisdom of Almighty God comes out when we remember that while
man is free, and the devil is abroad in the land, God can superintend and
overrule earth's affairs for the good of man and for His glory, and cause even
the wrath of man to praise Him. Nothing occurs by accident under the
superintendence of an all-wise and perfectly just God. Nothing happens by chance
in God's moral or natural government. God is a God of order, a God of law, but
none the less a superintendent in the interest of His intelligent and redeemed
creatures. Nothing can take place without the knowledge of God.
Jesus Christ sets this matter at rest when He
says, "Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall
on the ground without your Father. But the very hairs of your head are all
numbered. Fear ye not, therefore, ye are of more value than many
sparrows." God cannot be ruled out of the world. The doctrine of prayer
brings Him directly into the world, and moves Him to a direct interference with
all of this world's affairs. To rule Almighty God out of the providences
of life is to strike a direct blow at prayer and its efficacy. Nothing takes
place in the world without God's consent, yet not in a sense that He either
approves everything or is responsible for all things which happen. God is not
the author of sin. The question is sometimes asked, "Is God in
everything?" as if there are some things which are outside of the government of
God, beyond His attention, with which He is not concerned. If God is not in
everything, what is the Christian doing praying according to Paul's directions
to the Philippians?
Are we to pray for some things and about things
with which God has nothing to do? According to the doctrine that God is not in
everything, then we are outside the realm of God when "in everything we make our
requests unto God." Then what will we do with that large promise so
comforting to all of God's saints in all ages and in all climes, a promise which
belongs to prayer and which is embraced in a special providence: "And we know
that all things work together for good to them that love God"? If God is
not in everything, then what are the things we are to expect from the "all
things" which "work together for good to them that love God"? And if God is not
in everything in His providence what are the things which are to be left out of
our praying? We can lay it down as a proposition, borne out by Scripture, which
has a sure foundation, that nothing ever comes into the life of God's saints
without His consent. God is always there when it occurs. He is not far away. He
whose eye is on the sparrow is also upon His saints. His presence which fills
immensity is always where His saints are. "Certainly I will be with thee," is
the word of God to every child of His.
These evil things, unpleasant and afflictive, may
come with Divine permission, but God is on the spot, His hand is in all of them,
and He sees to it that they are woven into His plans. He causes them to be
overruled for the good of His people, and eternal good is brought out of them.
These things, with hundreds of others, belong to the disciplinary processes of
Almighty God in administering His government for the children of men. The
providence of God reaches as far as the realm of prayer. It has to do with
everything for which we pray. Nothing is too small for the eye of God, nothing
too insignificant for His notice and His care. God's providence has to do with
even the stumbling of the feet of His saints:
Read again our Lord's words about the sparrow, for
He says, "Five sparrows are sold for two farthings, and not one of them is
forgotten before God." Paul asks the pointed question, "Doth God care for oxen?"
His care reaches to the smallest things and has to do with the most
insignificant matters which concern men. He who believes in the God of
providence is prepared to see His hand in all things which come to him, and can
pray over everything. Not that the saint who trusts the God of
providence, and who takes all things to God in prayer, can explain the mysteries
of Divine providence, but the praying ones recognize God in everything, see Him
in all that comes to them, and are ready to say as John said to Peter at the Sea
of Galilee, "It is the Lord." Praying saints do not presume to interpret
God's dealings with them nor undertake to explain God's providences, but they
have learned to trust God in the dark as well as in the light, to have faith in
God even when "cares like a wild deluge come, and storms of sorrow
fall." "Though he slay me, yet will I trust him." Praying saints rest
themselves upon the words of Jesus to Peter, "What I do thou knowest not now,
but thou shalt know hereafter." None but the praying ones can see God's hands in
the providences of life. "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see
God," shall see God here in His providences, in His Word, in His Church. These
are they who do not rule God out of earth's affairs, and who believe God
interferes with matters of earth for them. While God's providence is over
all men, yet His supervision and administration of His government are peculiarly
in the interest of His people. Prayer brings God's providence into
action. Prayer puts God to work in overseeing and directing earth's affairs for
the good of men. Prayer opens the way when it is shut up or
straitened. Providence deals more especially with temporalities. It is in
this realm that the providence of God shines brightest and is most apparent. It
has to do with food and raiment, with business difficulties, with strangely
interposing and saving from danger, and with helping in emergencies at very
opportune and critical times. The feeding of the Israelites during the
wilderness journey is a striking illustration of the providence of God in taking
care of the temporal wants of His people. His dealings with those people show
how He provided for them in that long pilgrimage.
Our Lord teaches this same lesson of a providence
which clothes and feeds His people, in the Sermon on the Mount, when He says,
"Take no thought what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink, nor yet for your
body, what ye shall put on." Then He directs attention to the fact that it is
God's providence which feeds the fowls of the air, clothes the lilies of the
field, and asks if God does all this for birds and flowers, will He not care for
them? All of this teaching leads up to the need of a childlike, implicit
trust in an overruling providence, which looks after the temporal wants of the
children of men. And let it be noted specially that all this teaching stands
closely connected in the utterances of our Lord with what He says about prayer,
thus closely connecting a Divine oversight with prayer and its promises. We have
an impressive lesson on Divine providence in the case of Elijah when he was sent
to the brook Cherith, where God actually employed the ravens to feed His
prophet. Here was an interposition so plain that God cannot be ruled out of
life's temporalities. Before God will allow His servant to want bread, He moves
the birds of the air to do His bidding and take care of His prophet. Nor
was this all. When the brook ran dry, God sent him to a poor widow, who had just
enough meal and oil for the urgent needs of the good woman and her son. Yet she
divided with him her last morsel of bread. What was the result? The providence
of God interposed, and as long as the drouth lasted, the cruse of oil never
failed nor did the meal in the barrel give out. The Old Testament
sparkles with illustrations of the provisions of Almighty God for His people,
and show clearly God's overruling providence. In fact the Old Testament is
largely the account of a providence which dealt with a peculiar people,
anticipating their every temporal want, which ministered to them when in
emergencies, and which sanctified to them their troubles. It is worth while to
read that old hymn of Newton's, which has in it so much of the providence of
God:
In fact many of our old hymns are filled with
sentiments in song about a Divine providence, which are worth while to be read
and sung even in this day. God is in the most afflictive and sorrowing
events of life. All such events are subjects of prayer, and this is so for the
reason that everything which comes into the life of the praying one is in the
providence of God, and takes place under His superintending hand. Some would
rule God out of the sad and hard things of life. They tell us that God has
nothing to do with certain events which bring such grief to us. They say that
God is not in the death of children, that they die from natural causes, and that
it is but the working of natural laws. Let us ask what are nature's laws
but the laws of God, the laws by which God rules the world? And what is nature
anyway? And who made nature? How great the need to know that God is above
nature, is in control of nature, and is in nature? We need to know that nature
or natural laws are but the servants of Almighty God who made these laws, and
that He is directly in them, and they are but the Divine servants to carry out
God's gracious designs, and are made to execute His gracious purposes. The God
of providence, the God to whom the Christians pray, and the God who interposes
in behalf of the children of men for their good, is above nature, in perfect and
absolute control of all that belongs to nature. And no law of nature can crush
the life out of even a child without God giving His consent, and without such a
sad event occurring directly under His all-seeing eye, and without His being
immediately present. David believed this doctrine when he fasted and
prayed for the life of his child, for why pray and fast for a baby to be spared,
if God has nothing to do with its death should it die? Moreover, "does
care for oxen," and have a direct oversight of the sparrows which fall to the
ground, and yet have nothing to do with the going out of this world of an
immortal child? Still further, the death of a child, no matter if it should come
alone as some people claim by the operation of the laws of nature, let it be
kept in mind that it is a great affliction to the parents of the child. Where do
these innocent parents come in under any such doctrine? It becomes a great
sorrow to mother and father. Are they not to recognize the hand of God in the
death of the child? And is there no providence or Divine oversight in the taking
away of their child to them? David recognized the facts clearly that God had to
do with keeping his child in life; that prayer might avail in saving his child
from death, and that when the child died it was because God had ordered it.
Prayer and providence in all this affair worked in harmonious cooperation, and
David thoroughly understood it. No child ever dies without the direct permission
of Almighty God, and such an event takes place in His providence for wise and
beneficent ends. God works it into His plans concerning the child himself and
the parents and all concerned. Moreover, it is a subject of prayer whether the
child lives or dies.
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