It felt as though I had been on a spiritual treadmill for three and a half hours…and getting nowhere! As soon as he started speaking I silently asked God Why? Why!“Why have You sent another one into my life? The man was a rude, obnoxious, argumentative, know-it-all who was obviously in love with himself. It didn’t matter how polite and patient I was, I got nowhere. The words that I spoke whistled into one ear and zoomed out the other.

Pleasing God with my every thought, word and deed during that memorable meeting had been my primary objective. Only God knows if I succeeded. What I do know is that I wanted to get away from that guy as quickly as possible. Unless that poor lost sinner changed directions and followed the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ before he died and left this world, he was destined to spend eternity in a place I dubbed South Foreverland. It’s a place where he would suffer indescribable excruciating agony, an agony which would make my current afflictions with the back pain and chronic bathroom issues ‘a piece of cake’ in comparison.

I silently cried for that man as I was being driven home and several more times before falling asleep that night. My tears continued a few more times when I had to get up to deal with the bathroom issue. That’s when I literally cried out loud to the Lord that I couldn’t continue unless He enabled me to. I even came close to pleading with Him to take me home. And then, I heard it! Faint and fragmented at first but the melody was familiar. I had started to hear that melody the moment my current affliction began to escalate about a month previously.

This morning I plan to deliver a message about the role the Providence of God plays in the salvation of sinners such as you and me as well as how the Lord comforted and encouraged me during my awful ordeal. In the preface of Alexander Carson’s classic work, “The History of the Providence of God,” he writes: “The Providence of God in His government of the world is a subject of the deepest interest to the Christian. By having a proper view of it he will see God working day by day throughout the world just as He did when He fashioned His works of creation.

Though Christians recognize the doctrine they are prone to overlook it in their daily life, and deprive themselves of the blessing this truth is calculated to give. That’s why the scriptural evidence of the Providence of God is of great importance to the stability and comfort of all true believers.

True Christians are justifiably angered when people introduce falsehood into their church. Unless these people are challenged right away it will gain a powerful foothold, especially if what they are trying to teach is reinforced by phony “Christian” book publishers, television and radio. He shouldn’t be ashamed of any part of the divine testimony with the knowledge that God has honored him with, nor to seek the praise of men by concealing or sugar-coating God’s truth. He must remember that it is the will of God that heresies WILL enter Christian churches and lead many people astray. When he has nailed his colors to the mast, and sinks with his ship, he can have the satisfaction of knowing that God his Commander in Chief will ultimately be victorious; and that even the partial damage which the enemy has been enabled to inflict was a part and purpose of his Sovereign Lord and Master, Jesus Christ.

Without having this view of Divine Providence, I cannot see any consolation for the Christian when He’s contending with the ravages of falsehood. Philosophy combines with fanaticism and superstation with idolatry, to oppose the Lord’s Anointed One. Our only comfort is, that the all Powerful Lord reigns, and even those who oppose Him do so at His pleasure. “The Lord that sits in the heavens shall laugh at these people: the Lord shall have them in derision.” God will be honored even in the wrath of His enemies.

Nothing has a greater effect in leading Christians into false teaching than its success. Men generally judge a cause by its success; and Christians, though they do not recognize it as evidence, are often greatly influenced by it. Opinions spread by infection rather than by a thorough investigation of the evidence. An accurate acquaintance with the ways of Providence, as manifested in Scripture, is calculated to deliver a Christian from this prejudice. In the Bible we see that God has often granted much success to His enemies. By this they are hardened in their rebellion. Mere success is no proof of truth; and the lack of it is no proof of error.

A proper acquaintance with this teaching would also be of importance to guard us from being deceived by sleight of hand. The apostle Paul, with all his zeal for the gospel ignores all worldly wisdom in his attempts to advance its progress. He commended the truth to every man’s conscience in the sight of God. Let us use the means which God has appointed. Even if Christianity was in danger of being banished from the earth, let us not attempt to assist it by fraud, craft, or any other dishonorable means.

Let us fight the Lord’s battles with the weapons which He has put into our hands and leave their success to the General. All the ingenuity of all the wise men of the world could not extend the gospel one inch beyond the limits that have been assigned by God. It is often tempting to the Christian to consider the signs of the times in which he lives. The affairs of this world have been under the dominion of the prince of darkness but with a proper understanding of the Providence of God we have consolation. We know that the very opposition made to the kingdom of Christ is a part of the plan of divine wisdom, and will be overruled for the glory of God and of our Immanuel. God has given the world into the dominion of Satan, but not in such a sense as to exclude Himself from its government. The wrath of Satan, as well as the wrath of man, will be obliged to praise God; and anything else which doesn’t have this tendency, Jehovah will restrain, and not allow to be manifested.” “Believers are in the world in the midst of their enemies, who have all earthly power in their hands, yet the Lord preserves them uninjured in every instance in which it is not for His own glory and their good that they should suffer.”

In another classic, The Mystery of Providence, John Flavel opens with Psalm 57:2 where King David says: “I will cry unto God most high; unto God that performeth all things for me. Flavel comments: “The greatness of God is a glorious and unsearchable mystery. ’For the Lord most high is awesome. He is the great king over all the earth’ (Psalm 47:2). The condensation of the most high God to men is also a profound mystery. Though the Lord is on high He looks upon the lowly’ (Psalm 138:6). But when both these meet together, as they do in Scripture, they make up a matchless mystery. Here we find the most high God performing all things for a poor distressed creature such as King David and every other believer such as you and me.

It is very encouraging and comforting for Christians in all the troubles they experience in this world in knowing that there is a wise Spirit sitting in all the wheels of motion, and governing the most eccentric creatures and their most insidious designs to a blessed and happy result for them. It would be awful to live in a world that was devoid of God and Providence. The truth of the matter is that Christians would have destroyed themselves thousands of years ago.

How deeply we are concerned in this matter will appear by that great instance which Psalm 57 presents us with. It was composed, as the title notes, by David himself when he hid himself from Saul in the cave.” “Three things are remarkable in the former part of the Psalm; his extreme danger; his earnest address to God in that extremity, and the arguments he pleads with God.

His extreme danger is expressed in both the title and the body of the Psalm. The title tells us this psalm was composed by him when he hid himself from Saul in the cave. This cave was in the wilderness of Engedi among the broken rocks where the wild goats live, an obscure and desolate hole; yet even in there the envious Saul pursued him. (I Samuel 24:1,2). And now he that had been so long hunted as a partridge upon the mountains seems to be enclosed in the net. His enemies were outside the cave, from which there was no other outlet. Then Saul entered the mouth of this cave, in the sides and creeks of which David and his men lay hidden, and they actually saw him. Can you imagine how desperate they must have felt? Well might he say: ‘my soul is among lions, and I lie even among them that are set on fire’ (verse 4) What hope was there now? They feared immediate destruction.

Yet this does not frighten David and cause him to lose faith in God or forget his duty. Between the jaws of death he prays, and earnestly pleads to God for mercy: ‘Be merciful to me, O God, be merciful to me (verse 1). This excellent psalm was composed by him when there was enough to decompose the best man in the world. Note David’s repetition of his extreme danger and his fervency in prayer mercy, mercy, nothing but mercy can save him from a horrible death.

The arguments he pleads for obtaining mercy in this perdicament are very considerable. First, he pleads his reliance upon God as an argument for God to show him mercy. ‘Be merciful unto me, O God, be merciful unto me, for my soul trusteth in thee; yeh, in the shadow of thy wings will I make my refuge, until the calamities be overpast’ (verse 1). His trust and dependence are upon a compassionate God, who will not expose any of His children that take shelter under His wings. It’s also a promise by which protection is assured to them that fly to Him for sanctuary; ‘Thou will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee’ (Isaiah 26:3). Thus David encourages himself from the consideration of the God in whom he trusts. He pleads former experiences of God’s help in past trials as an argument encouraging hope under the present one: ‘I will cry unto God,’ Crying unto God is an expression that denotes not only prayer, but intense and fervent prayer. “In my distress I screamed to the Lord for his help. And he heard me from heaven; my cry reached his ears.” Psalm 18:6 (TLB).

“Yet while Christ was here on earth he pleaded with God, praying with tears and agony of soul to the only one who would save him from (premature) death. And God heard his prayers because of his strong desire to obey God at all times” Hebrews 5:7 (TLB).

I’ve been told that real men don’t cry. Try telling that to King David and the King of Kings, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. No longer was the melody fragmented on the night I cried to God when He sent me the words to what used to be my favorite tune when I had been a two year old toddler that had just been bitten by a mosquito or a little kid who fell off his first scooter and scraped his knee and I cried and cried, and cried and couldn’t stop. I remember my Mom rushing over to her boy, pick me up, put me on her lap and hold me close to her bosom and gently rock me back and forth and sing “An Irish Melody” until I stopped crying.

Over in Killarney many years ago,

Me mudder sang a song to me in tones so sweet and low,

Just a simple little ditty, in her good old Irish way,

And I’d give the world if I could hear her sing that song today.

Too ra loo ra loo ra,

Too ra loo lah ri,

Too ra loo ra loo ra,

That’s an Irish lullaby.