Sermon Tone Analysis

Welcome...

Introduce self...

Pray...

Heavenly Father, thank you for another day in which we can freely gather and worship you.

Reveal yourself to our hearts.

Give me grace as I preach your word and teach us all through the power of your Holy Spirit.

In Jesus’ name, Amen.

First, supernatural provision of bread, then water, now military strength.

Should we expect this sort of supernatural provision in our lives?

Should we be disappointed or concerned when we don’t have miracles?

NO.

The absence of the supernatural does not mean the absence of God.

[[SLIDE]]

God’s providence is at work constantly, most often through natural means.

Joseph

Most of you are familiar with the story of Joseph:

Joseph is hated by his brothers and sold into slavery.

Ends up in Egypt as a slave.

We read this

There is no indication that anything supernatural occurred to deliver this bless.

In fact, as we read on, Joseph had success, but also continued to face trial.

He was falsely accused of a crime he did not commit and thrown in prison.

But then we read this:

[[SLIDE]]

Even though Joseph was acting, God was acting.

This ends up becoming one of the primary themes of this story, one of the primary themes of Genesis, and even arguably even one of the primary themes of the entire Bible.

This is one of the great mysteries of God.

How can we have agency and God still be sovereign?

Abraham & Issac

There is another story earlier in Genesis that has always stood out to me:

Abraham is getting old and he calls his servant and asks him to go fetch him a wife for his son from his own people, not the Canaanites.

And then we don’t hear about this angel again for the rest of the story,.

What we do see is a series of apparently completely natural events.

Elisha’s Servant & the Chariots of Fire

In 2 Kings, the king of Syria was attacking Israel.

Michael & Prince of the Kingdom of Persia

The “Random” Arrow

Our days are numbered

2 Kings 20:5–6 (ESV)

“...Thus says the Lord, the God of David your father: I have heard your prayer; I have seen your tears.

Behold, I will heal you.

On the third day you shall go up to the house of the Lord, and I will add fifteen years to your life...”

I’m taking the time to preach this today because the culture we live in today and the religion of scientism.

Scientism (Merriam-Webster)

an exaggerated trust in the efficacy of the methods of natural science applied to all areas of investigation (as in philosophy, the social sciences, and the humanities)

The Bible teaches that God is near and intimately involved in people’s lives.

The Bible teaches that the spiritual realm is more real and more eternal than the physical realm.

Sparrows & Hairs

Fine-tuning argument

If the initial explosion of the big bang had differed in strength by as little as 1 part in 10^60, the universe would have either quickly collapsed back on itself, or expanded too rapidly for stars to form.

In either case, life would be impossible.

[See Davies, 1982, pp.

90-91.

(As John Jefferson Davis points out (p. 140), an accuracy of one part in 10^60 can be compared to firing a bullet at a one-inch target on the other side of the observable universe, twenty billion light years away, and hitting the target.)

Maybe you’re strongly anti-Big Bang theory.

This was one of the most significant blows to the idea of naturalism in the past 100 years.

The idea that the material universe as we know it has a beginning lines up directly with Genesis 1:1 and this is profound.

There are at least 11 references in the Bible to God “stretching out” or “spreading out” the heavens.

Passages like:

Calculations by Brandon Carter show that if gravity had been stronger or weaker by 1 part in 10 to the 40th power, then life-sustaining stars like the sun could not exist.

This would most likely make life impossible.

(Davies, 1984, p. 242.)

Strong nuclear force

The electromagnetic force

The relationship of the mass of a neutron relative to a proton

AND a thousand other finely tuned variables

Jesus is the God who created the world and sustains it:

Hebrews 1:1–3 (ESV)

Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world.

He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power.

God is sovereign, his is intimately involved and directing every aspect of the universe, and yet, we somehow still have agency and a role to play in the world.

God maintains his sovereignty through us.

Look at this passage:

Or this passage:

What is the big take away?

I don’t have all the answers to how God governs the universe.

But I will chose to trust him.

Israel was chastised because they failed to trust God, despite the work of his hand right in front of their faces.