The book of Romans, chapter 11, Romans chapter
11, and just read a few verses at
the end, very familiar to us.
Romans 11, 33.
Oh, the depth of the riches, both of
the wisdom and knowledge of God!
How unsearchable are his judgments and his ways
past finding out!
For who has known the mind of the
Lord, or who has become his counselor?
Or who has first given to him, and
it shall be repaid to him?
For of him, and through him, and to
him are all things, to whom be glory
forever.
Amen.
That's kind of a holy gasp by the
Apostle Paul.
He's been surveying the wonders of God in
salvation and sanctification and in prophecy as well.
And he just can't contain himself and lets
out that eloquent, eloquent verse of praise to
the Lord.
What is the greatest thought that can ever
occupy the human mind?
I'm waiting to hear the answer.
That's exactly right.
God is the right answer.
And that's why we've been thinking some during
these days about the God of creation.
And you get to the end of messages
like that and you feel frustrated because you
haven't done justice and never could do justice
to the subject.
And last night we were thinking of the
God of providence.
And when we use that expression, the God
of providence, we don't just mean the God
who provides for his people, but the whole
manner in which he orders the universe and
in which he cares for his own people.
And we thought of some of the marvelous
ways in which he works.
At the end of the meeting, somebody came
to me and said, why don't you tell
some incidents from your own life, you know,
instead of from the lives of others?
Well, I don't like to, but I will
tell this.
On January 6, 1989, I was doing final
proof, page proof corrections on the New Testament
commentary.
And I really don't think I've ever been
more frustrated in all my life.
The computer kept introducing new errors every time
it went through a conversion process.
And it had to go through several before
it got to the typesetter.
And it seemed that we were facing demonic
interference.
In fact, Ed and Gertrude Harlow were working
with me on it.
And Ed said that in all his years
as a missionary in Zaire, he never encountered
such demonic interference as he had.
And I confess that on that morning, I
was feeling very low.
And then the mail came.
And in the mail, there was an envelope,
just a form envelope from Operation Mobilization in
Georgia.
Just a kind of a routine photocopied letter.
But inside, there was a calligraphy, a hand
-lettered motto.
And it was First Chronicles 2820, taken from
the Living Bible, which doesn't happen to be
my favorite version of the Bible.
But listen to what it said.
At a moment when we were at our
very lowest, it said, Don't be frightened by
the size of the task.
Be strong and courageous and get to work.
For the Lord, my God, is with you.
He will not forsake you.
He will see to it that everything is
finished correctly.
Now, not only the words that were spoken,
but the timing of the letter.
The letter was mailed a long time before.
Why did it get to me on that
particular morning?
It was just exactly the message that I
needed.
Get to work.
The Lord, my God, is with you.
He will not forsake you.
He will see to it that everything is
finished correctly.
I tell you, it's wonderful to have a
God like that, that's so interested in a
little nobody working away at a desk, that
he would order the postal system to work
on a certain schedule.
Do you believe that?
I believe it.
And bring the message to that person at
exactly the right time when he needed it
most.
What a wonderful God we have.
You say, yes, but not everything is so
favorable in life as that.
I know, I know.
But God is still working through the unfavorable
things as well.
Years ago, four Christians were traveling in the
Middle East.
They were searching out places where they could
carry on Jewish evangelism.
One of them, a Dr. Black, had a
bad fall from a camel.
And the injuries were such that it was
decided that he should go back to Great
Britain and that Dr. Keith should go back
with him.
They stopped in Austria on the way back
and Dr. Keith came down with cholera.
So you have one man suffering from a
bad camel fall and the other man now
stricken with cholera in Vienna.
Well, the archduchess heard about it and she
made inquiries.
She heard of the serious illness and the
reason for the travels.
And she promised the protection of the archduke
to any missionaries who might be led to
settle there.
And so instead of establishing a work in
the Middle East, they established a work there
in Austria.
And one of the Jews who came to
know the Lord was named Alfred Edersheim, who
later wrote the book The Life and Times
of the Messiah.
The other was Adolf Sacher, who wrote some
lovely books on the Old Testament and on
the book of Hebrews as well.
And many of you have probably read his
commentary.
Now, just think of that.
God harnesses a fall from a camel and
a case of cholera to work out his
wonderful purposes.
Who but God could ever do something like
that?
And yet we look at it, we see
the underside of the weaving, don't we?
And it just looks like a bunch of
tangled threads.
God knows what he's doing.
He's working all things according to the counsel
of his own will.
Really marvelous.
And what will he not do for those
who are serving him?
I believe that the stars in the heavens
fight for the person who's fighting for God.
And there's nothing he can't harness to accomplish
his glorious purposes.
It's a divine providence, not a coincidence, although
oftentimes it seems like a coincidence to us.
Years ago, there were a couple working in
Africa, William and Margaret Rue.
They were serving the Lord in what was
then the Belgian Congo.
And they weren't exactly at the end of
the world there, but you could see it
from there, from where they were.
And in order to get food and supplies,
they had to travel 600 miles.
Their shopping trips had to be scheduled in
the dry season, when the journey occupied three
months.
There and back, round trip, three months.
And one year, they had no funds for
the trip.
And so the trip had to be canceled
and a long shopping list had to be
laid aside.
Shopping list for six months.
What do you do in a case like
that?
Pretty hopeless, huh?
But the Lord had not forgotten them.
Right at that time, 13 nationals showed up
at their door with a year's supply of
food.
A year's supply of food.
How did that ever happen?
Well, not long before that, a prospector had
come through there and had become deathly sick.
And they had taken him in and cared
for him and shown him hospitality.
And in gratitude, he decided to buy a
year's supply of food for the missionaries when
he was doing some shopping for himself.
Now, isn't that wonderful how God can control
the mind of an unsaved prospector and move
him to buy a year's supply of food
and arrange for it to be carried by
13 nationals and delivered to the door at
the time of greatest need?
You know, my Bible says all things are
yours and ye are Christ and Christ is
God.
And I believe that.
I believe it literally.
I believe that, and people laugh at me
when I say this, but I believe that
United Airlines flies for the people of God
and other people get the benefit of it.
I believe the garbage pickup is really primarily
for the people of God.
But, of course, the rest of the world
benefits from their presence.
I believe that.
All things are yours.
Should we appropriate that verse of Scripture?
Shouldn't we?
I taught that once years ago at Emmaus,
I remember.
And there was a fellow in the class,
Dick Sanders, and he laughed out loud.
And then the Lord led him to the
Chad Republic and he wrote me once and
he said, Brother, he said, it's absolutely true.
He said, it's absolutely true.
All things are ours and we are Christ
and Christ is God.
Wonderful, isn't it?
What a wonderful God we have.
If we can just go away from the
conference with greater thoughts of God, a greater
heart of appreciation to him, greater worship for
him, I will feel that the time has
been well spent.
Let me go back to the Rue family
in Africa.
They lived a very Spartan life in those
days, and the children didn't always have shoes.
But now furlough is drawing near.
And really, it would be very nice if
they had shoes to wear when they get
back to England and Scotland, especially Anna.
She was the oldest girl and she was
really in need.
Don't worry about it.
A national came to their door.
He had been in Elizabethville and he had
bought a pair of shoes 500 miles away.
And now he didn't want those shoes for
a little girl and he offered to sell
them to them.
He needed the money.
They bought the shoes and they were exactly
Anna's size.
Makes you gasp, doesn't it?
Exactly Anna's size.
Boy, isn't it wonderful to see God working
in our everyday lives like that?
Little tokens that we're in the way that
we're walking with him.
You say, what a marvelous coincidence.
No, F.B. Myers said there's no such
a word in faith vocabulary.
I like that.
There's no such a word as coincidence in
faith vocabulary.
That to which human judgment is a coincidence
to faith is a providence.
We see God's hand in it, not blind
chance doing it all.
Years ago, going back to Africa, it was
a time when persecution was great.
And there was a man named Frederick Nolan
who was fleeing from his enemies during the
North African persecution.
He was hounded by his enemies over hill
and valley with no place to hide.
And finally, he fell exhausted into a wayside
cave expecting to be found any minute.
And as he sat in that cave, he
watched a spider weaving a web across the
mouth of the cave.
And his enemies came.
They were following his tracks.
They came to the mouth of the cave
and they saw a spider's web.
They said he couldn't be in there.
Couldn't get in there without breaking that spider's
web.
And so they passed on and left him
there hiding in the cave.
He escaped.
When they passed by, he was able to
escape from his hiding place.
And he said, where God is, a spider's
web is like a wall.
Where God is not, a wall is like
a spider's web.
And I want to tell you this morning,
that's the God we worship.
The God that can take that insignificant little
spider and at that particular time direct that
spider to weave a web across the mouth
of that cave.
Marvelous, isn't it?
And it's absolutely true.
Just before I came away, I spent a
couple of days with one of our young
missionaries in Honduras, Jim Haysmeyer.
He had previously told me about this incident.
He's a very upbeat sort of a fellow.
I've never known him to be discouraged or
downhearted.
But down in Honduras, at one time, he
had a real downer.
He said he shouldn't have been happier the
way God was working down there, but he
was depressed and discouraged.
And he admitted it was just crazy.
There was no reason for it.
And it wasn't natural for him.
It was the only time he had ever
experienced depression.
He shared it with his wife and they
decided to write to a very dear friend
in Lubbock, Texas, and ask him to pray.
They wrote the letter.
They sealed it.
They stamped it and took it down to
the post office to mail it.
And there was a letter in their box
from this particular brother in Lubbock.
It was the first letter they had received
from him in 15 months.
This is what he wrote.
This is to let you know we think
of you often.
My writing is a miracle in itself.
I haven't even written to my own parents.
But this evening, I truly feel a burden
to let you know that we appreciate you
and care about you.
I know by the Holy Spirit that you
find yourself down.
But take courage, for our Father will fulfill
his purpose in you.
Sometimes the hardest part of our walk is
just resting in him.
May our Father richly bless you and your
family, answering your requests even before they are
spoken.
It had taken 16 days for that letter
to get from Lubbock, Texas, down to Honduras.
But it just came at the right time.
He was mailing a letter to this brother
in Lubbock, and the letter was waiting for
him in his box.
Marvelous, isn't it?
When I was in business school, one of
the great subjects that we had to deal
with was the timing and sequence of moves.
You know, in business decisions, I've never seen
any timing and sequence of moves like the
Lord's.
And notice the last sentence in his letter.
It says, May our Father richly bless you
and your family, answering your requests even before
they are spoken.
And he did.
16 days before Jim had this downer, this
man was writing the letter to him.
Before they call, I will answer.
Pretty wonderful, isn't it?
A great God that would go to such
pain for us.
I'm sure that some of you have heard
J.B. Nicholson's experience.
He was traveling out in Africa, and he
was on his way home.
He was going to stop in Scotland and
then go on to Canada.
And after leaving Nairobi, the plane landed in
Uganda.
And, of course, it was at the time
of Idi Amin, and things were pretty rough
in Uganda.
Asians were fleeing from the oppressive rule of
Amin, and white people had been forbidden to
enter.
And here the plane comes down in Uganda,
and the immigration man is absolutely furious with
J.B. Nicholson.
He said, you've got to leave on that
plane.
Well, he couldn't leave on that plane because
the plane was filled with missionary kids going
back.
And there was no room on the plane
at all.
And so finally they extended the expulsion limit
to 2 p.m. And it was then
leave or be arrested.
And J.B. Nicholson shot up a prayer
to the Lord.
At 1 p.m., an unscheduled British plane
made a stop for fuel on its way
to London.
And Mr. Nicholson went and tried to get
on the plane, and the agent assured him
that every seat was full.
But he made a very strange concession.
He said, we'll put your baggage on for
you.
Nobody's ever suggested that to me.
You're not going to be on the plane,
but we'll put your baggage on for you.
When the plane was reboarding, Mr. Nicholson decided
to just get in with the crowd, you
know.
So he did.
He took his place with the crowd that
were trying to get on the plane.
Strangely enough, no one asked for his ticket
at the door.
It was marvelous.
They always ask for your ticket.
He had none.
And now he had to find an empty
seat.
Seeing his uncertainty, a flight attendant asked for
his seat number so he could help him
find it.
But he didn't have any.
And so he'd have to leave the plane.
And just then, he noticed one seat that
didn't have an occupied sign on it.
And the attendant agreed to check.
And the attendant knew by now that if
he put Mr. Nicholson off the plane, he'd
be arrested, and who knows what else would
happen.
And, of course, the wait seemed interminable.
And finally, the attendant returned, and he said,
I don't understand it, sir.
We're supposed to be full, but we have
to go.
That seat is yours.
And soon the plane was airborne, and Mr.
Nicholson shot up a prayer, a word of
thanksgiving to the Lord, and leaned back in
the first-class seat.
And he looked at his watch, and it
was 2 p.m., the deadline for leaving
the airport.
One hour later, the crew was serving the
meal, and they ran out of steak dinners
and asked Mr. Nicholson apologetically if he would
take one of the economy meals instead.
And he graciously agreed to do that.
It was a small sacrifice to make under
the circumstances.
But it didn't prove to be necessary.
There was a turbaned man on the other
side of the aisle, a Sikh.
And he explained to the flight attendant that
he didn't eat meat, and could he have
another meal.
The flight attendant assured him that was all
right, and asked Mr. Nicholson if he would
mind taking that meal.
It turned out that the man sitting next
to Mr. Nicholson in that first-class section
was an executive of the airline.
You know, what else can happen?
And learning of Mr. Nicholson's dilemma, he assured
him of every possible assistance.
In fact, when they landed in London at
11 p.m., he accompanied Mr. Nicholson through
immigration and customs, and took him up to
one of the attendance desks there in the
airport, the ticket counter.
And there he arranged for accommodation in the
airport hotel, the transport to the hotel, a
free breakfast the next morning, and tickets rewritten
for Scotland and Canada.
It's almost like a dream, isn't it?
The wheels, within wheels, working all for the
accomplishment of God's purposes.
And as he rehearsed the marvelous providence of
God, Mr. Nicholson wrote, Does the Lord at
times smile down upon us?
I wonder.
Well, that evening, after a luxurious shower and
contemplating the comforts of a good night's sleep
in a king-size bed, I could not
help but smile as I bowed to give
thanks to the one who's gone into heaven
and is at the right hand of God,
angels and authorities and powers being made subject
to him.
God, making it possible for his servant to
get out at that crucial time, giving him
a first-class seat, a first-class meal,
and all the accommodations there in London for
the trip home.
Really, our thoughts of God are too small,
aren't they?
But when you think of all of these
things, and although these things, as I said
last night, they didn't all happen at the
same time, they could have, and similar things
are happening all over the world as we're
here in the tabernacle and contemplating the wonders
of God's providence.
I'm sure that many of you are familiar
with the name W.E. Vine.
He's the man who wrote the expository dictionary
of New Testament words and a great man
of God.
Years ago, he and his brother were in
charge of a Christian school in Exeter, England,
and a call came from Mr. Vine to
join the staff of Echoes of Service in
Bath, England.
It's similar to CMML.
And Mr. Vine and his brother made it
a matter of earnest prayer and one morning
when he was having his daily consecutive reading,
he came to Deuteronomy 31, 7.
It says, Thou must go with this people.
Thou must go with this people.
Well, Mr. Vine's probably like myself.
When I get guidance from the Lord, I
ask him to confirm it in the mouths
of two or three witnesses because my Bible
says in the mouths of two or three
witnesses shall everything be established.
At around that same time, his brother was
off preaching somewhere.
He was a guest in his home and
after prayer in the morning, he rose from
his knees and he noticed a text on
the wall.
In fact, it was from two different places
in the Bible and it was rather a
strange combination of verses.
The first said, I was left.
Isaiah 49, 21.
Just that.
I was left.
And the second was Ephesians 6, 7.
With goodwill, doing service as unto the Lord.
I was left.
With goodwill, doing service unto the Lord.
What a strange combination of verses, wasn't it?
And later when they got together and talked
about it, they were struck by this extraordinary,
these extraordinary texts, but they decided to wait
for further guidance.
And they decided that if the Lord provided
an assistant for the work, then W.E.
Vine would be free to go to Bath.
And the morning that decision was made, Mr.
Vine was walking downtown and he met a
former student of the school and he asked
casually what he was doing.
He said he was working in an accountant's
office, but he wasn't really satisfied with that
particular position.
He didn't want to continue in that occupation.
And he thought of applying for a job
as an assistant master in a school.
He said to Mr. Vine, you wouldn't have
an opening, would you?
And this was just the guidance that settled
the matter.
Now, that's marvelous, isn't it?
First of all, God speaks to W.E.
Vine through that verse, thou must go with
his people.
And then he said to the brother, I
was left with goodwill serving the Lord.
Marvelous, isn't it?
And then he confirms the guidance in the
mouths of a third witness.
And that that sealed the matter.
And Mr. Vine left for Bath.
What a wonderful God we have.
As I said last night, the more we're
cast upon the Lord, the more we see
this type of thing happening.
During the Japanese internment, after they had moved
into China, they set up kind of concentration
camps for foreign residents.
And these camps contained a broad spectrum of
people.
There were business people there.
There were missionaries, people from every walk of
life, some teachers.
And Mr. Christopher Willis, a wonderful Christian, was
one of the men in one of these
camps.
Just before he had been taken captive, he
noticed a sale of paper and paint and
paint brushes for artwork.
And the Lord laid it on his heart
to buy that paper and to buy some
paint and to buy some brushes.
I'm not sure I would have heard the
voice of God.
I'm going to go to a concentration camp.
It's wonderful to be obedient to the guidance
of the Lord.
He bought them.
And as he was in the camp there,
he grieved over the godless conditions that were
prevailing there.
And the idea struck him that he should
take that paper and take the paint and
the brushes and letter a scripture verse to
hang upon the wall.
And he knew it was useless to go
to the camp committee to get permission for
that.
So he went to Mr. Grant, the chairman
of the committee.
And he received a go ahead from Mr.
Grant.
And he lettered a text five feet long
and three feet deep.
And early on a Sunday morning, he put
it up in the dining room.
It said, God, our father, which art in
heaven, hallowed be thy name.
Give us this day our daily bread.
That's all.
Give us this day our daily bread.
Well, there was mixed reaction to the text.
The committee said it must come down because
it must.
It might be offensive to Catholics and Jews.
The leader of the Catholics said there was
just one thing the matter with the text.
It ought to be framed.
The Jewish leader.
Oh, I should say, Mr. Willis donated a
part of his bed in order to make
a frame for the text.
The Jews said that every word of the
text was in their prayer book and that
it should stay.
Months later, they scheduled a play to be
held there in the dining room.
And the text didn't fit in too well
with the plot of the of the play
or the stage props either.
So it was taken down and left in
a corner.
The next morning at breakfast, it was announced
that there was no bread.
The supply of flour had failed.
Remember what the text said?
Give us this day our daily bread.
No flour to make bread.
And this continued for three days.
And then somebody said, it's the text.
It's the text.
It's because of the text.
They've taken down the text.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And since then, we haven't had any bread.
Someone else said the text is our mascot.
We must get it up again.
And the ones who had taken it down
had to put it up again.
And then the supply of bread resumed.
After several more months, another play was scheduled.
And this time, the participants hung heavy drapes
over the text.
They didn't dare take it down.
So they put heavy drapes over the text.
And again, there was no bread.
The yeast supply had dried up.
And the people murmured about the drapes until
those who had hung them were forced to
remove them.
And the bread reappeared on the table.
And this happened a third time.
The text was taken down and thrown behind
a piano.
And the bread failed.
And a gentleman who had been a brewery
manager said to Mr. Willis, that text should
be nailed up so they can't take it
down.
And Mr. Willis said, fine, would you nail
it up?
And the brewery manager, former brewery manager, handled
the matter.
You know, the text remained on the wall
until the camp was closed down.
It never failed again.
People often say to me, where was God
when the concentration camps were going on in
Germany?
Where was he when they were going on
in China?
He was right there.
He was still the God of Providence, working
out his purposes for his beloved people.
What a God.
Some of you know Don Harris.
He's serving the Lord down in Mexico.
He first went down there working with Fairbanks
Morse.
And then the Lord called him to full
time service there.
And he and his wife, Claire, are serving
the Lord there.
And one evening he was returning from an
evening Bible study with five Mexican nationals.
He always tried to get home by midnight.
He didn't want Claire to be worried about
him.
He didn't want her to lie awake wondering
when he was going to come.
But this night was going to be different.
They were on a lonely stretch of road
and the engine of the car went dead.
And it was only with difficulty that Don
was able to steer it off to the
side of the road and park it there.
And all the brothers jumped out and picked
up the hood and looked inside and pulled
their ignorance and tried to find the cause.
And there was a lot of excited talk.
But no one was able to pinpoint it.
Now, what do you do?
You're out in the middle of nowhere on
a dark night.
The car is dead.
And what?
Somebody suggested they go to find a brother
named Salo.
Salo, who lived in a, well, it wasn't
a near city.
Zozutla was some distance away.
They said, well, that's a good idea.
So four brothers started walking, four of the
nationals started walking to the nearest town.
They hoped to find a believer there who
would drive them to Zozutla to get Salo.
Don waited there in the car with one
of the nationals, Samuel Montaya.
And there was little conversation.
Just a lot of self-pity.
Too bad that they should find themselves in
such a predicament.
And then Don said, brother, here we sit
with a problem and we haven't even prayed
about it.
And the other one said, that's right.
He said in guilty surprise, he said, what
should we pray for?
And Don said, well, let's pray for two
things.
First of all, that we'll be able to
get the engine problem solved.
And second, that we'll be home by midnight.
I don't want Claire to be worried.
I always try to be home by midnight.
And two hours later, the brothers returned with
Salo.
And he checked it out.
And he checked out the fuel and electrical
systems.
And he discovered that the coil of the
car was shot.
Bad news.
No auto parts store around there.
And even if there had been, it wouldn't
be open at that time.
Just then a Volkswagen bug passed by.
And of course, you know, if you were
driving a Volkswagen bug, you wouldn't stop.
A car by the side of the road
and these fellows standing around there.
Could be a trap.
Could be an ambush.
So the Volkswagen drove by and went down.
And then they watched it.
It turned back.
And passed them again.
And went down.
And then it turned around again.
And came right to where they were.
And the driver of the Volkswagen said, anything
I can do to assist you?
And Salo cried out, the coil is shot.
The driver of the Volkswagen, the good Samaritan,
reached over to his back seat.
He picked up an imported Bosch coil.
He handed it to Salo.
An imported Bosch coil was a rarity at
that time in Mexico and much superior to
a domestic one.
For anyone to carry an extra Bosch coil
in his car as a spare part was
most unusual.
Most unusual.
He handed it to them.
They tried to pay him, but he wouldn't
take anything.
However, he did receive a gospel tract graciously
from them.
And he was on his way.
And the coil was quickly installed.
And six grateful believers were mobile again.
Don got home at 2 a.m. Went
to the bedroom.
And Claire was sleeping soundly.
The Lord must have given her a somnolence
that night.
She had dropped off before midnight.
It's enough to take your breath away, isn't
it?
Having a Volkswagen driving around with an imported
Bosch coil on the back seat.
It must have been the Lord, don't you
think?
How else could it ever have happened?
Later, when he was telling this incident, Don
said, This was a period in my life
when prayer was stale.
Knowing my heart, God surely performed this miracle
just to remind me that he was still
my friend and a very present help in
time of trouble.
I feel like taking a deep breath.
I think of such a wonderful God as
that.
Let me tell you one more.
And this goes back to Jim Haysmeier again
down in Honduras.
He was scheduled to take a meeting out
in the boondocks, but he didn't know the
way and his car wouldn't start.
And the battery was dead.
So there was a young fellow there named
Pedro.
And he volunteered to go along in his
truck, take his truck along.
And everything went along without a hitch.
And the meeting itself was fruitful.
On the return trip, it started to drizzle.
And it had been a long day.
And Jim started to doze.
And he dreamed that he was on a
roller coaster riding crazily.
But to his horror, he woke up and
found the car was going all over the
highway, back and forth, sideways, like a top
on a wet mountain road.
And when it hit the side of the
road, it started to roll down the embankment.
And as it finally came to a stop,
it was over on its side, on the
driver's side, Pedro's side.
And, of course, they were stunned for a
moment.
And then after the shock had subsided, Jim
realized that he had survived.
And he also realized that he was lying
on the top of Pedro.
He quickly crawled out through the broken window
above him.
And he accidentally kicked on the cab light
as he crawled out.
And this enabled him to see Pedro.
And his body was inside the truck, but
his head was outside the window.
His head and his neck were outside the
cab.
And he was pinned down.
And then Pedro shouted for help.
And Jim was greatly relieved to know that
he was still alive.
And Jim got out.
He tried to lift the car, but he
didn't have strength to lift the car.
An automobile went by.
The men came out.
The two of them tried to lift the
car off Pedro, and they couldn't lift it.
And then a bus came by.
A bus came by with all kinds of
men in it.
And they all came out.
Nothing at all.
Lifted up the vehicle to relieve him.
It was then that Jim got a fresh
view of the providence of God.
As that car went over on its side,
it rested on a rock right next to
Pedro's head.
Six inches different, Pedro would have been dead.
You know, you wonder, don't you, how in
that moment of crash, broken glass, things flying
crazily, and yet God directs that car so
that it leans against a rock instead of
crushing his head.
As it was, he escaped with a broken
jaw, and spectators came and crowded around and
called it incredible luck.
And Jim and Pedro knew it was the
precision of our wonderful Lord.
When it happened and people saw it, they
said, nobody will ever get out of that
wreck alive.
God has his ways of doing it.
It's marvelous when you stop to think of
it, isn't it?
And God is doing this all the time.
All the time.
So how well we might say today, from
the rising of the sun to the going
down of the same, the name of the
Lord is to be praised.
This is our God.
We will love him forever and forever.
Shall we pray?