Randomness, luck, chance, fate. This is modern man’s answer to the age-old question, “Why?” Of course, if one dismisses the whole idea of God, as many do, then there is no other alternative. Many, while not dismissing the idea of God, have fabricated a God of their own speculation. Seventeenth-century deism constructed a God who created a universe and then walked away to leave it running according to its natural laws and man’s devices. Many people today are practical deists.
In His well-known statement about sparrows, Jesus said, “Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from the will of your Father.… So don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows” (Matthew 10:29–31). According to Jesus, God does exercise His sovereignty in very minute events—even the life and death of an almost worthless sparrow. And Jesus’ whole point is: If God so exercises His sovereignty in regard to sparrows, most certainly He will exercise it in regard to His children. While it is certainly true that God’s love for us does not protect us from pain and sorrow, it is also true that all occasions of pain and sorrow are under the absolute control of God. If God controls the circumstances of the sparrow, how much more does He control the circumstances that affect us? God does not walk away and leave us to the mercy of uncontrolled random or chance events.
A Christian husband flew in a private plane to another city to give his testimony at an evangelistic meeting, taking his son with him. On the way home, they ran into an electrical storm that caused the plane to crash. Both the father and son were killed. A Christian friend, in an effort to comfort the wife and mother said, “One thing you can be sure of: God had no part in that accident.” According to this friend, God was apparently looking the other way when the pilot got into trouble. A sparrow cannot fall to the ground without our Father’s will but apparently a plane with Christians aboard can?
I read a blasphemous statement by someone who said, “Chance is the pseudonym God uses when He’d rather not sign His own name.” A lot of Christians are doing that for God today. Often unwilling to accept the fact that God is working, because they don’t understand how He is working, they have chosen to substitute the doctrine of chance for the doctrine of divine providence.
