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©Copyright February 20, 2022 by Rev. Bruce Goettsche
This morning we turn to Isaiah 10 which is about God’s dealings with Assyria.
It is uncertain whether this was written after the Assyrians capture of Israel and Syria or right before that happened.
As we read today, we will zero in on the way God relates to Assyria and learn some things about the nature of God as it relates to our lives.
I feel the need to apologize to you even before we start.
This text is going to stretch your brain today.
In fact, it may stretch so much, you may feel it is going to tear.
I had the same feeling as I worked on this.
However, if we can even begin to grasp what the Bible is teaching us, these truths will be a source of strength throughout your life.
Let’s dive into the text.
5 “What sorrow awaits Assyria, the rod of my anger.
I use it as a club to express my anger.
6 I am sending Assyria against a godless nation,
against a people with whom I am angry.
Assyria will plunder them,
trampling them like dirt beneath its feet.
7 But the king of Assyria will not understand that he is my tool;
his mind does not work that way.
His plan is simply to destroy,
to cut down nation after nation.
8 He will say,
‘Each of my princes will soon be a king.
9 We destroyed Calno just as we did Carchemish.
Hamath fell before us as Arpad did.
And we destroyed Samaria just as we did Damascus.
10 Yes, we have finished off many a kingdom
whose gods were greater than those in Jerusalem and Samaria.
11 So we will defeat Jerusalem and her gods,
just as we destroyed Samaria with hers.’
”
The Providence of God
As in many passages, talking about the judgment of God on various nations, it is easy to find our eyes and our minds glazing over.
It seems irrelevant to us because many of these nations no longer exist.
But this passage tells us something important that we often miss.
In verse 5 God says Assyria is “the rod of God’s anger.”
In other words, God chose to use Assyria to judge Israel.
In verse 7 God says, “But the king of Assyria will not understand that he is my tool; his mind does not work that way.”
What we see here is a doctrine called the Providence of God.
It is one of the most comforting doctrines in the Bible.
Please understand, this is not a doctrine that theologians dreamed up, it is simply a way of describing what a host of verses in the Bible is saying.
The Doctrine of Providence states, God is “hands on” in our existence.
He will orchestrate events, impact circumstances, lead us in various directions, and at times even reign us in by His discipline of us.
He uses the positive and negative circumstances of our lives to accomplish His purpose.
This is so much so that we can say there are no “accidents” in the life of the believer.
God ordains or allows whatever comes to pass and does it to help us achieve His purpose for our lives.
Unfortunately, people are somewhat uncomfortable with the notion of God being this involved in our lives.
We would rather believe He shows up every now and again to adjust our course and bail us out.
Sometimes, when bad things happen (from our perspective) we like to say, “Some things ‘just happen’.”
We say this because we are uncomfortable with the thought that God might be involved in something tragic or painful.
But I think most of us would say the Lord could have prevented it and didn’t.
Which means He is involved either actively or passively.
In the book of Job, after Job lost everything (including his children) Job said, “The Lord gives, and the Lord takes away, blessed be the name of the Lord.”
Later he said to his wife, “Should we accept only good things from the hand of God and never anything bad?” (Job 2:10)
The doctrine of providence is not fatalism.
Fatalism says, all of life is scripted and we are just playing a part.
We are not robots simply following a program.
The doctrine of God’s providence holds two truths, that are constantly affirmed throughout the Bible, in tension.
1. God is in absolute control
2. We are responsible for the choices we make
This first truth, that God is in control is affirmed in many places.
Here are a few of those places.
· Many are the plans in a man’s heart, but it is the LORD’S purpose that prevails (Prov.
19:21)
· 17 For this has been decreed by the messengers;
it is commanded by the holy ones, so that everyone may know
that the Most High rules over the kingdoms of the world.
He gives them to anyone he chooses—
even to the lowliest of people.”
(Daniel 4:17)
· “Who can speak and have it happen if the Lord has not decreed it?”
(Lam 3:37)
· “The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the Lord.”
(Pr 16:33)
· “The Son radiates God’s own glory and expresses the very character of God, and he sustains everything by the mighty power of his command.”
(Hebrews 1:3)
· “He existed before anything else, and he holds all creation together.“
(Colossians 1:17)
· “in him we live and move and have our being.”
Acts 17:28
· “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them to me and at the last day I will raise them up.”
John 6:44
My intention is not to bury you in scripture.
I just want you to see this is a very prevalent doctrine in the Bible and yet, I suspect, in many congregations, it is never talked about.
We talk about God being with us only when good things happen.
From these verses we see God is involved in running the universe from the casting of lots (think “flipping a coin”) to the plans we make, to the things that happen daily, to the number of days we live on this earth.
This leads us to the conclusion that everything that happens is in a sense, a part of God’s will.
This is illustrated perhaps most graphically in most of the Bible accounts.
With Joseph, God used the jealousy of his brothers, their selling him into slavery, the charge of “rape” made against him, the dreams of the prisoners and the dream of Pharoah himself.
And the timing in all these stories is perfect.
Gideon saw God involved in making a welcome mat wet or keeping it dry.
God was involved in how the various men drank water out of the river.
And He gave the Midianites a dream that set up Gideon’s battle.
When David was being chased by Saul, David and some others snuck into Saul’s camp at night.
They took Saul’s spear and water jug and were undetected because we are told God had Saul’s army in a deep sleep.
In the book of Esther God uses a sequence of events (including a sleepless night for the King which led him to read the archive and to “just happen to” learn about the faithfulness of Mordecai).
God is not mentioned in the entire book, but His fingerprints are everywhere.
I don’t know if God is causing every event in our lives, but I do believe He is in every significant event.
We are fine with saying God brought us blessing, but somehow when bad things happen, we conclude that some things “just happen.”
We might even say, “God had nothing to do with what happened.”
Such comments deny the sovereign rule of God.
If we really believe that “all things work together for good for them that love God and are called according to His purpose” (Romans 8:28) then we have to believe that God has control over all circumstances of our lives.
When we pray, we are asking God to intervene in the lives of people and circumstances.
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