Protected from False Teaching
00:00:00.000 | Well, God sustains, upholds, and governs over everything that he makes, leading it all to
00:00:09.880 | its intended end.
00:00:12.680 | This is the theme of Pastor John's wonderful new book, Providence.
00:00:16.360 | His truth is so glorious.
00:00:17.360 | I mean, we are meant to see and savor it for ourselves so deeply that it changes our lives.
00:00:23.680 | And so, we're celebrating these implications on Wednesdays, and there's a total of 10 of
00:00:28.600 | them.
00:00:29.600 | In episode 1589, we looked at how the precious providence of God means that in the suffering
00:00:35.520 | of Christians, neither Satan, nor man, nor nature, nor chance is wielding decisive control.
00:00:45.340 | God is sovereign over all of our suffering.
00:00:49.120 | And that means none of our suffering is meaningless.
00:00:52.960 | It's always purposeful.
00:00:54.440 | It's always measured.
00:00:56.120 | Always wise.
00:00:57.120 | Always loving.
00:00:58.380 | Always working for us an eternal weight of glory.
00:01:03.080 | That was implication number six.
00:01:05.220 | Here now with implication number seven is Pastor John.
00:01:09.560 | The seventh real life effect of seeing and savoring the all-pervading, all-embracing,
00:01:18.000 | all-governing providence of God is that it makes us alert and resistant to man-centered
00:01:27.360 | substitutes that pose as good news but are false alternatives to the God-centered vision
00:01:37.720 | of reality and salvation in the Bible.
00:01:40.400 | Let me say it another way.
00:01:43.320 | There is something about the embrace, the joyful, heartfelt, intelligent embrace of
00:01:52.120 | this radically God-centered, God-exalting, God-besotted view of all things that creates
00:02:01.560 | a kind of theological antibody against man-centered diseases, false teachings that make too much
00:02:12.040 | of man and too little of God.
00:02:14.920 | All faith in the all-governing providence of God is like a spiritual inoculation or
00:02:22.720 | immunization against much false teaching.
00:02:28.400 | And what a gift, what a benefit that is to the church and to the human soul.
00:02:35.920 | History seems to show that this is so.
00:02:40.760 | For example, as Ian Murray describes in his biography of Jonathan Edwards, toward the
00:02:47.520 | end of the 18th century convictions about God's all-governing providence and other
00:02:54.880 | God-centered doctrines waned.
00:02:58.400 | They declined in North America.
00:03:02.160 | It was the spirit of the age to stress less God's sovereignty and more man's autonomy.
00:03:11.080 | In the progress of this departure from biblical providence after the Great Awakening, those
00:03:18.440 | congregational churches of New England, which came to embrace views of man's own powers
00:03:24.400 | as decisive rather than God's powers as decisive, those churches gradually moved into
00:03:32.440 | Unitarianism, which denied the deity of Christ, and into Universalism, which basically said
00:03:39.820 | that all the face of the world are going to lead people to heaven.
00:03:45.160 | And much of the deep secularism that one finds in New England to this very day traces its
00:03:52.200 | roots back to this process.
00:03:54.840 | In other words, a deep, strong conviction about the all-governing providence of God
00:04:00.800 | can be lost.
00:04:02.040 | It can.
00:04:03.840 | No doctrinal allegiance guarantees protection from spiritual decay.
00:04:10.200 | Only God himself can keep the heart from drifting away and keep it true.
00:04:17.240 | But what the history shows is that while there is conviction about God's all-governing
00:04:26.120 | providence and while there's love for this beautiful doctrine, there is a spiritual and
00:04:34.840 | theological barrier against drifting into false man-centered substitutes.
00:04:42.740 | It seems that there is something about the truth of God's all-embracing providence
00:04:49.520 | that stands guard over the mind and heart and keeps her, the heart, alert and keeps
00:04:58.360 | the church alert to tendencies and shifts that swing wide from the plumb line of God's
00:05:06.400 | Word.
00:05:07.400 | You can read about the same process in J.I.
00:05:09.880 | Packer's Quest for Godliness.
00:05:11.920 | I've written down here, page 160, where he describes how Richard Baxter in the 17th
00:05:19.880 | century drifted away from an emphasis on certain man-humbling, God-exalting teachings and how
00:05:27.000 | the following generations reaped a grim harvest in the Baxter church in Kitterminster.
00:05:34.920 | And you can see the same thing in the 19th century in the downgrade controversy surrounding
00:05:40.640 | Charles Spurgeon.
00:05:43.240 | Paul says in 1 Timothy 3.15 that the church of the living God is the pillar and bulwark
00:05:49.160 | of the truth.
00:05:50.160 | And what I'm suggesting is that part of that bulwark is the church's stand, embrace,
00:05:59.040 | love for the profoundly God-centered vision of reality implicit in the all-pervasive providence
00:06:06.480 | of God.
00:06:07.600 | When that is surrendered, the church is vulnerable to many man-centered distortions of biblical
00:06:16.560 | truth.
00:06:18.560 | So what I'm saying is that seeing and savoring this providence sends the roots of countercultural
00:06:26.160 | conviction so deeply into the rock of Scripture that lovers of this truth are not easily blown
00:06:33.640 | over by the winds of false teaching.
00:06:36.680 | Why?
00:06:37.960 | One reason, I think, is that this providence is so contrary to fallen human nature and
00:06:45.440 | so out of step with the prevailing self-exalting culture that if Christians can break ranks
00:06:52.280 | with the world on this point and hold fast to this truth, then they can on any point,
00:06:58.800 | which means they are safe from much deception from the world.
00:07:05.240 | There's another reason I think that embracing God's all-governing providence makes us resistant
00:07:11.880 | to man-centered substitutes, namely, the sheer enormity of God, the sheer weight and seriousness
00:07:22.400 | and authority of God implicit in this doctrine creates in the soul a spiritual sense, a kind
00:07:31.760 | of holy acumen that can detect in any idea or doctrine or behavior a tendency toward
00:07:42.240 | exalting man while diminishing God.
00:07:47.000 | In 1 Corinthians 1, 26-30, Paul tells us to remember and to consider our calling.
00:07:55.200 | And then he describes this calling in a way that explicitly says God's providence in
00:08:02.840 | bringing us to himself in this calling was carried out in such a way as to stop the mouth
00:08:11.720 | of all man-centered boasting and to awaken only Christ-exalting boasting.
00:08:17.280 | In other words, views that put man low in his own boast and put Christ high in our boast,
00:08:26.640 | that view will keep us from drifting away from a right understanding of our calling.
00:08:31.440 | Here's what he says.
00:08:33.200 | Consider your calling, brothers.
00:08:35.000 | Not many of you were wise according to the worldly standards.
00:08:38.480 | Not many were powerful.
00:08:40.320 | Not many were of noble birth.
00:08:43.080 | But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise.
00:08:47.200 | God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong.
00:08:50.360 | God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring
00:08:55.880 | to nothing things that are.
00:08:58.160 | And here it is.
00:08:59.240 | So that no human being might boast in the presence of God.
00:09:05.960 | And then he flips it and he gives the positive alternative.
00:09:10.920 | Because of him, you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness,
00:09:17.960 | and sanctification, and redemption.
00:09:20.320 | And here it is.
00:09:21.320 | So that, as it is written, let him who boasts boast in the Lord.
00:09:28.960 | In other words, God in his providence has saved us and called us in a way so that he
00:09:39.320 | secures from us self-humbling and Christ-exalting.
00:09:46.400 | The self is humbled.
00:09:48.160 | Christ is exalted.
00:09:49.880 | And I believe that the reality of God's all-pervading, all-embracing providence does that.
00:09:58.260 | And in that way is part of the bulwark of the truth that protects us from many false
00:10:06.280 | ideas.
00:10:07.280 | And that is a great and precious gift.
00:10:12.560 | Immunized against false, man-centered theology by the precious doctrine of the providence
00:10:18.960 | of God.
00:10:20.360 | That is implication number seven of ten in our Wednesday series.
00:10:25.040 | So good.
00:10:26.040 | Love this series.
00:10:27.040 | Thanks for joining us today.
00:10:28.040 | Normally on the podcast, we answer your questions.
00:10:29.800 | And if you have a question for us, or if you want to search or browse all 1,600 of our
00:10:34.160 | episodes or subscribe to the podcast, do all of that online at DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn.
00:10:42.280 | Should I pursue my dream or should I pursue obedience?
00:10:47.840 | Question a lot of Christians face when thinking about career options or career changes.
00:10:53.360 | Do we follow our heart or do we choose what is most obedient?
00:10:57.240 | It's a great question about career choices.
00:10:59.800 | It comes in from a listener to the podcast named Josh.
00:11:02.480 | And Pastor John will weigh in to close out the week.
00:11:05.040 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke.
00:11:06.320 | Thanks for listening.
00:11:07.320 | And we will see you back here on Friday.
00:11:08.920 | [END]
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