The Lord Jesus "is the Creator of all things," and "by Him all things are held together;" nor does anything occur which is not decreed by Him. We speak of things as accidental; but there is nothing really accidental not even "the falling of a sparrow," or the loss of "a hair of our head."
It is true that people make their own plans and often with an express desire to oppose the will of God. But they are all unconscious agents in His hands! "Indeed, Herod and Pontius Pilate met together with the Gentiles and the people of Israel in this city to conspire against Your holy servant Jesus, whom You anointed. They did what Your power and will have decided beforehand should happen!" (Acts 4:27, 28)
The envy of the Jewish priests,
the treachery of Judas,
the timidity of Pilate,
the cruelty of the Roman soldiers was all subservient to God's designs, and all fulfilled His inscrutable purposes! They followed the dictates of their own minds; but in all their actions, "God's counsel stood," and He accomplished His own sovereign and eternal will through them!
Behold our blessed Lord in every change of situation, from His arrest to the grave who would suppose that these were successive steps to the throne of Heaven, and the means ordained for the salvation of His chosen people? Yet this was really the case; and by all these events a multitude of conflicting prophecies were fulfilled. He sat at the helm and directed all the storm!
Precisely thus He does at this time also.
The multitudinous events of every day seem as if they arose randomly and pass away without any particular effect. But He who sees all things from the beginning, has ordained that a sleepless night, an opening of a book, a casting of a lot shall all as certainly effect His ends as any event, however great, or however manifestly connected with His designs!
[Charles Simeon]
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Psalm 115:3 ... But our God is in the heavens: he hath done whatsoever he hath pleased.
Proverbs 16:9 ... A man's heart deviseth his way: but the Lord directeth his steps.
Isaiah 14:26-27 ... This is the purpose that is purposed upon the whole earth: and this is the hand that is stretched out upon all the nations. For the Lord of hosts hath purposed, and who shall disannul it? and his hand is stretched out, and who shall turn it back? ❤
