The Crook in the Lot Part 1 - Sermon Notes 2/12/2012

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Sermon Text: Genesis 37 & 45

Sermon Title: The Crook in the Lot (The Providence of God) Part 1 of 2

Scripture Reading: Psalm 42

Introduction

We studied Genesis 35 the last time I taught. The title of the message was “The Way Out.” What is necessary to move away from life-dominating sin and towards Christ is the following:

Urgency and Right Motives

• Radical Amputation
• Radical Accountability
• Radical Appropriation
• Worship by Grace through Faith

Genesis 36 records the genealogy of Esau. Genesis 37:1-2 moves us into the tenth and final major section of Genesis. The final section of Genesis (Genesis 37-50) is about the family of Jacob with special emphasis on the life of Joseph.

The theme of this final section is The Providence of God and the Typology of Christ found in Joseph. In addition to these themes, Moses’ purpose was to show Israel how Jacob and his sons, who had been living in Canaan, came to settle in Egypt.

What do we mean by The Providence of God?

The Providence of God is defined by the following mysterious reality:

1. God Controls all things (Sovereignty): The almighty and everywhere-present power of God; [a] whereby, as it were by his hand, he [b] upholds and governs heaven, earth, and all creatures; so that herbs and grass, rain [c] and drought, fruitful [d] and barren years, meat and drink, [e] health and sickness, [f] riches and poverty, yea, and all things [g] come, not by chance, but by his fatherly hand (Heidelberg Catechism).
• [a]: Acts 17:25, 26, 27, 28
• [b]: Heb. 1:3
• [c]: Jer. 5:24
• [d]: Acts 14:17
• [e]: John 9:3
• [f]: Prov. 22:2; Job 1:21
• [g]: Mat. 10:29,30; Eph. 1:11
2. People are fully responsible to God for their thoughts and behavior. People are not robots. Christians are not fatalists. “Let no one say when he is tempted, ‘I am being tempted by God,’ for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one. But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire” (James 1:14-15).
3. Providence: With point No. 2 being true, God uses the evil intent of man’s heart to accomplish His good and perfect will (Acts 2:22-23, 27-28). “The king’s heart is a stream of water in the hand of the LORD; he turns it wherever he will” (Proverbs 21:1).
• Isaiah 10:5-6 – Assyria is the instrument of Divine judgment.
• Isaiah 10:7 – Assyria’s purpose is not to carry out Divine judgment. It is in the heart of the wicked Assyria to destroy, but not for God’s purposes.
• Isaiah 10:12 – If this is the work of God, how is Assyria responsible?
• Isaiah 10:15 – If God wields the axe handle, how is the axe head held responsible?
4. Providence is God’s mysterious work of doing ultimate good in the midst of pain and suffering for all those who believe (Romans 8:28-29) – with 1, 2, and 3 considered.

Notice the tension between man’s responsibility and God’s providence in our text:

1. Notice man’s wickedness and responsibility:
• Genesis 37:4-5, 8, 11, 18-20, 23-24, 27-28, 31-33
2. Notice God’s absolute sovereignty and Divine providence:
• Genesis 45:4-5, 7-8; Genesis 50:15-20

We are often taught “God makes lemonade with lemons.” God makes good from bad. I would teach to the contrary. I believe the Scripture overwhelmingly teaches that God DOES NOT author the evil, but does ordain and allow the evil. Here is the best illustration I can offer (Proverbs 21:1): Water running down a hill (water is the heart of man; channels are the providence of God). God justly withholds His grace, which the sinner does not desire, and providentially channels wicked towards His good ends. Examples: Joseph’s brothers; Jesus’ Crucifixion

“The big hurdle” (John MacArthur) or “The deep end of the theological swimming pool” (CJ Mahaney) is reconciling man’s wickedness and responsibility with God’s providence and sovereignty. I believe it is the failure to understand this deep truth that leads to the deep and seemingly insurmountable depression many Christians wrestle with each day. I believe it is the failure to understand this deep truth that we are angry, bitter, recluse, cynical, addicted to eating, spending, prescription pills, and illegal drugs.

How can God be both good and powerful, yet allow such evil and suffering? Why would an infinitely wise God use evil as a tool to fulfill His grand plan?

“God’s people today are often perplexed by the evil that surrounds them and affects them. More Christian martyrs have fallen in the last century than in the preceding nineteen centuries combined. Christians frequently ask, ‘Where is God? How can he allow this evil to happen? Why does not God do something about this wickedness?’” (Sidney Greidanus Preaching Christ in Genesis).

“The statements about God’s overruling of human affairs are undoubtedly the key to understanding the whole Joseph story” (Gordon Wenham). I would argue further than Wenham and say it is also the key to understanding the whole of your story. Both divine sovereignty and human responsibility are fully affirmed in Scripture. “The relationship between divine sovereignty and human responsibility is a theological mystery that is something ultimately beyond human comprehension. Mysteries make us uncomfortable, and thus there is always a temptation to rationalize them, that is, to modify one belief to make it more compatible with the other, in this case to play down divine sovereignty by saying that certain actions fall outside the realm of God’s control, or, alternatively, to claim that, since all is predestined, man is not really answerable for his acts. But the Joseph story and the rest of Scripture insist that both are fully true” (Gordon Wenham, The Word Biblical Commentary Genesis Volume 2).

Between these two biblical truths is inescapable and seemingly insurmountable tension. Today my goal is not to reconcile the tension between man’s wickedness, choice, and accountability with God’s goodness, power, sovereignty, and providence. I believe the messages preached on 9/11/11 (Why Does God Permit What he Prohibits?) and 7/24/11 (Question and Answer Session) did as good of a job as I can currently do at answering the tension.

The title of the message today was inspired by Puritan Thomas Boston’s book “The Crook in the Lot.” Boston took the basis for his book from Ecclesiastes 7:13-14, “Consider the work of God: who can make straight what he has made crooked? In the day of prosperity be joyful, and in the day of adversity consider: God has made the one as well as the other, so that man may not find out anything that will be after him.”

My goal today is to help equip you to think and respond rightly to the Crook in the Lot.

What Must I Believe and Think When a Crook is in my Lot?

(Italics are taken from: Thomas Boston’s The Crook in the Lot)

1. If we are to grow in the midst of affliction, whether imposed by ourselves, others, or circumstances, we must think rightly. There must be strategic, right, and disciplined thinking.
2. The labor of affliction is absolutely necessary to birth growth in the life of a believer (James 1:3-4; Romans 5:3-4; Hebrews 12:10). Remember, affliction produces nothing. Right labor in the midst of affliction produces growth.
3. “No good thing does He withhold from those who walk uprightly” (Psalm 84:11b).
4. Consider the omnipotent God who did not treat you as Paul and interrupt your sin (Acts 9); Consider the just God who did not kill the sinner (Acts 12:23); Consider the omniscient God who did not cause you to eat grass like a cow (4:33) and apply Romans 8:28-29 to your thinking. What is the good? To conform you to the image of Christ. Why is this good? The knowledge of the glory of God is found in the face of Jesus Christ, and there we find true and lasting joy (II Corinthians 4:5-6).
5. You have no Christian friend without a crook in their lot (2 Timothy 3:12; John 16:33).
6. Stop comparing. What you could carry with ease will cause another to crumble. Your adversity is custom made.
7. “The LORD was with Joseph” (Genesis 39:2-3, 21, 23). “Behold I am with you always” (Matthew 28).
8. There is not, in anybody’s lot, any such thing as a crook, in respect of the will and purposes of God. What I believe Boston is means is what makes the crook or bent is when God’s will presses against our will.
9. The greatest crook of the lot on earth is straight in Heaven. God has never implemented a “Plan B.”
10. God does not take pleasure in your suffering. God does not willingly afflict His children (Lamentations 3:31-33).
11. Rather than worry, allow the stairway of providence to lead you to the cliff of wonder (Romans 11). Stand there and worship with thanksgiving and supplication (Philippians 4). “Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things to wonderful for me to know” (Job 42:3b).
12. You are being tried. Are you dross or gold? Only the heat of affliction will tell. God does this to purify the Church and your own soul (1 Peter 1:7).
13. God gives the crook to reveal motives and sin (Joseph’s brothers during the famine recalled the seriousness of their sin against God). Did Job ever think he would question God? Did Moses ever realize he was such an angry man? Would Jeremiah have cursed the day of his birth? As Paul Tripp says, water comes out of a bottle when it is shaken, not because of the shaking, but because there was water in the bottle. You can shake an empty bottle as much as you would like, but nothing will come out. “The Lord your God led you these forty years in the wilderness, to humble you, and to prove you, to know what was in your heart” (Deuteronomy 8).
14. God is keeping you from sin (Proverbs 30). Many are obliged to the crook in their lot that they do not go to those excesses which their vain minds and corrupt affections would with full sail carry them to; and they would from their hearts bless God for making it, if they did but calmly consider what would most likely be the issue of removal of it (Proverbs 30).
15. Sometimes He bows your lot because you bow your neck. Do not despise the chastening of the LORD (Hebrews 12; Job 5; Proverbs 3), but rather put your hand on your mouth when the rod is upon your back (Lamentations 3).
16. It was good for me that I was afflicted so that I might learn your Word (Psalm 119:71).
17. There is no good reason to be certain the crook will be made straight unless it is a contextual promise in God’s Word. Therefore, make your prayer that of Christ, “Change it if you will, but thine will, not mine” and Paul, “thy grace is sufficient.” Be more preoccupied with your bent heart than your bent lot (James 1:4).
18. Remember, the humbling of the spirit will have a mighty good effect on a crossed lot, but the removal of the cross will have none on the unhumbled spirit. Why the Cross rather than the electric chair, the gallows, lethal injection, etc.?
19. Satan’s work is also by the crook, either to bend or break people’s spirits, and oftentimes by bending to break them. “No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it” (1 Corinthians 10:13). There is a secret to contentment regardless of circumstance (Philippians 4:13).
20. Consider His holiness and justice, showing He does not wrong you; His mercy and goodness, that it is not worse; His sovereignty, that may silence you; His infinite wisdom and love, that may satisfy you in it; His omnipotence and omniscience to hedge you up from courses of sin you would otherwise be apt to run into.
21. Remember, a bruised reed He will not break; a smoldering wick He will not quench (Isaiah 42; Matthew 12).
22. It is no easy thing to humble men’s spirits; it is not a little that will do it; it is a work that is not soon done. There is a need of a digging deep for a thorough humiliation. Many a stroke must be given at the root of the tree of the natural pride of the heart before it falls; often it seems to be fallen, and yet it rises again. Do you wish for two Heavens?

Dwell on His mercy (Lamentations 3:19:24).