Well, God sustains, upholds, and governs over everything that he makes, leading it all to its intended end. This is the theme of Pastor John's wonderful new book, Providence. His truth is so glorious. I mean, we are meant to see and savor it for ourselves so deeply that it changes our lives.

And so, we're celebrating these implications on Wednesdays, and there's a total of 10 of them. In episode 1589, we looked at how the precious providence of God means that in the suffering of Christians, neither Satan, nor man, nor nature, nor chance is wielding decisive control. God is sovereign over all of our suffering.

And that means none of our suffering is meaningless. It's always purposeful. It's always measured. Always wise. Always loving. Always working for us an eternal weight of glory. That was implication number six. Here now with implication number seven is Pastor John. The seventh real life effect of seeing and savoring the all-pervading, all-embracing, all-governing providence of God is that it makes us alert and resistant to man-centered substitutes that pose as good news but are false alternatives to the God-centered vision of reality and salvation in the Bible.

Let me say it another way. There is something about the embrace, the joyful, heartfelt, intelligent embrace of this radically God-centered, God-exalting, God-besotted view of all things that creates a kind of theological antibody against man-centered diseases, false teachings that make too much of man and too little of God. All faith in the all-governing providence of God is like a spiritual inoculation or immunization against much false teaching.

And what a gift, what a benefit that is to the church and to the human soul. History seems to show that this is so. For example, as Ian Murray describes in his biography of Jonathan Edwards, toward the end of the 18th century convictions about God's all-governing providence and other God-centered doctrines waned.

They declined in North America. It was the spirit of the age to stress less God's sovereignty and more man's autonomy. In the progress of this departure from biblical providence after the Great Awakening, those congregational churches of New England, which came to embrace views of man's own powers as decisive rather than God's powers as decisive, those churches gradually moved into Unitarianism, which denied the deity of Christ, and into Universalism, which basically said that all the face of the world are going to lead people to heaven.

And much of the deep secularism that one finds in New England to this very day traces its roots back to this process. In other words, a deep, strong conviction about the all-governing providence of God can be lost. It can. No doctrinal allegiance guarantees protection from spiritual decay. Only God himself can keep the heart from drifting away and keep it true.

But what the history shows is that while there is conviction about God's all-governing providence and while there's love for this beautiful doctrine, there is a spiritual and theological barrier against drifting into false man-centered substitutes. It seems that there is something about the truth of God's all-embracing providence that stands guard over the mind and heart and keeps her, the heart, alert and keeps the church alert to tendencies and shifts that swing wide from the plumb line of God's Word.

You can read about the same process in J.I. Packer's Quest for Godliness. I've written down here, page 160, where he describes how Richard Baxter in the 17th century drifted away from an emphasis on certain man-humbling, God-exalting teachings and how the following generations reaped a grim harvest in the Baxter church in Kitterminster.

And you can see the same thing in the 19th century in the downgrade controversy surrounding Charles Spurgeon. Paul says in 1 Timothy 3.15 that the church of the living God is the pillar and bulwark of the truth. And what I'm suggesting is that part of that bulwark is the church's stand, embrace, love for the profoundly God-centered vision of reality implicit in the all-pervasive providence of God.

When that is surrendered, the church is vulnerable to many man-centered distortions of biblical truth. So what I'm saying is that seeing and savoring this providence sends the roots of countercultural conviction so deeply into the rock of Scripture that lovers of this truth are not easily blown over by the winds of false teaching.

Why? One reason, I think, is that this providence is so contrary to fallen human nature and so out of step with the prevailing self-exalting culture that if Christians can break ranks with the world on this point and hold fast to this truth, then they can on any point, which means they are safe from much deception from the world.

There's another reason I think that embracing God's all-governing providence makes us resistant to man-centered substitutes, namely, the sheer enormity of God, the sheer weight and seriousness and authority of God implicit in this doctrine creates in the soul a spiritual sense, a kind of holy acumen that can detect in any idea or doctrine or behavior a tendency toward exalting man while diminishing God.

In 1 Corinthians 1, 26-30, Paul tells us to remember and to consider our calling. And then he describes this calling in a way that explicitly says God's providence in bringing us to himself in this calling was carried out in such a way as to stop the mouth of all man-centered boasting and to awaken only Christ-exalting boasting.

In other words, views that put man low in his own boast and put Christ high in our boast, that view will keep us from drifting away from a right understanding of our calling. Here's what he says. Consider your calling, brothers. Not many of you were wise according to the worldly standards.

Not many were powerful. Not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise. God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong. God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are.

And here it is. So that no human being might boast in the presence of God. And then he flips it and he gives the positive alternative. Because of him, you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption. And here it is.

So that, as it is written, let him who boasts boast in the Lord. In other words, God in his providence has saved us and called us in a way so that he secures from us self-humbling and Christ-exalting. The self is humbled. Christ is exalted. And I believe that the reality of God's all-pervading, all-embracing providence does that.

And in that way is part of the bulwark of the truth that protects us from many false ideas. And that is a great and precious gift. Immunized against false, man-centered theology by the precious doctrine of the providence of God. That is implication number seven of ten in our Wednesday series.

So good. Love this series. Thanks for joining us today. Normally on the podcast, we answer your questions. And if you have a question for us, or if you want to search or browse all 1,600 of our episodes or subscribe to the podcast, do all of that online at DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn.

Should I pursue my dream or should I pursue obedience? Question a lot of Christians face when thinking about career options or career changes. Do we follow our heart or do we choose what is most obedient? It's a great question about career choices. It comes in from a listener to the podcast named Josh.

And Pastor John will weigh in to close out the week. I'm your host, Tony Reinke. Thanks for listening. And we will see you back here on Friday. 1 1 1 1 2 2 3 4 5 6