(Charles Simeon) LISTEN to audio! Download audio
“Our God is in Heaven; He does whatever He pleases!” Psalm 115:3
“The LORD does whatever He pleases–in the heavens and on the earth, in the seas and all their depths!” Psalm 135:6
“In his heart a man plans his course, but the LORD determines his steps.” Proverbs 16:9
“Many are the plans in a man’s heart, but it is the LORD’s purpose that prevails!” Proverbs 19:21
“This is the plan determined for the whole world; this is the hand stretched out over all nations. For the LORD Almighty has purposed, and who can thwart Him? His hand is stretched out, and who can turn it back?” Isaiah 14:26-27
“My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please!” Isaiah 46:10
“In Him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of Him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of His will!” Ephesians 1:10-11
The Lord Jesus “is the Creator of all things,” and “by Him all things are held together;” nor does anything occur which is not decreed by Him. We speak of things as accidental; but there is nothing really accidental–not even “the falling of a sparrow,” or the loss of “a hair of our head.”
It is true that people make their own plans–and often with an express desire to oppose the will of God. But they are all unconscious agents in His hands! “Indeed Herod and Pontius Pilate met together with the Gentiles and the people of Israel in this city to conspire against Your holy servant Jesus, whom You anointed. They did what Your power and will had decided beforehand should happen!” Acts 4:27, 28
The envy of the Jewish priests,
the treachery of Judas,
the timidity of Pilate,
the cruelty of the Roman soldiers
–were all subservient to God’s designs, and all fulfilled His inscrutable purposes! They followed the dictates of their own minds; but in all their actions, “God’s counsel stood,” and He accomplished His own sovereign and eternal will through them!
Behold our blessed Lord in every change of situation, from His arrest to the grave–who would suppose that these were successive steps to the throne of Heaven, and the means ordained for the salvation of His chosen people? Yet this was really the case; and by all these events a multitude of conflicting prophecies were fulfilled. He sat at the helm, and directed all the storm!
Precisely thus He does at this time also. The multitudinous events of every day seem as if they arose randomly, and pass away without any particular effect. But He who sees all things from the beginning, has ordained that a sleepless night, an opening of a book, a casting of a lot–shall all as certainly effect His ends–as any event, however great, or however manifestly connected with His designs! Esther 3:7; Esther 6:1, 2
The history of Joseph, whose elevation to a throne was promoted by events which, to the eye of sense, would appear most calculated to counteract it. In the outcome, Joseph said to his treacherous brothers, “You planned evil against me; God planned it for good, to bring about the present result–the survival of many people!” Genesis 50:20
“The LORD foils the plans of the nations; He thwarts the purposes of the peoples. But the plans of the LORD stand firm forever, the purposes of His heart through all generations!” Psalm 33:10, 11
