November 3 – “A contented heart looks to God’s disposal, and submits to God’s disposal, that is, he sees the wisdom of God in everything. In his submission he sees his sovereignty, but what makes him take pleasure is God’s wisdom.”

“…Contentment is, submitting, and taking pleasure in God’s disposal. That is to say, the soul that has learned this lesson of contentment looks up to God in all things. He does not look down at the instruments and means, so as to say that such a man did it, that it was the unreasonableness of [...]

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October 10 – “…though you can not perceive the footsteps of the flock, in the way of your affliction, you must not therefore conclude that you are the first that ever traveled that road.”

“Case 8. ‘The AFFLICTIONS I meet with are strange and unusual. I doubt if ever a child of God was tried with such dispensations of providence as I am.’ Answer. Much of what was said on the preceding case, may be helpful in this. Holy Job was assaulted with this temptation, Job 5:1, ‘To which [...]

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September 30 – “O grant, that our faith may be sustained by this support—that thou art the governor of the world, and that men were not only once created by thee, but are also preserved by thy hand…”

“Grant, Almighty God, that as it cannot be but that, owing to the infirmity of our flesh, we must be shaken and tossed here and there by the many turbulent commotions of this world,—O grant, that our faith may be sustained by this support—that thou art the governor of the world, and that men were [...]

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September 26 – “Except then we be fully persuaded, that God by his secret providence regulates all these confusions, Satan will a hundred times a day, yea every moment, shake that confidence which ought to repose in God.”

“This is a truth much needed: for Satan darkens, as with clouds, the favor of God, when any adversity happens to us, and when God himself thus proves our faith. But adversities are as it were clouds, excluding us from seeing God’s fervor, as the light of the sun appears not to us when the [...]

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September 24 – “…for when we are under the protection of God, we must necessarily continue safe and safe for ever; not that we shall be free from evils, but that the Lord will deliver us from thousand deaths, and ever preserve our life in safety.”

“…but this is yet the conclusion of the argument,—that as God had adopted that people, and received them into favor, and testified that he would be their defender, the Prophet confidently draws this inference,—that this people cannot perish, for they are preserved by God. No power of the world, nor any of its defences, can [...]

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September 23 – “Thus we see that the worst of men are in God’s hand, as Satan is, who is their head…”

“By saying that the Chaldeans would be terrible and dreadful, he praises not their virtues; but, as I have already reminded you, he shows that they would be prepared to do his service by executing his vengeance: and he so regulated his judgement, that he used their cruelty for a good purpose. Thus we see [...]

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September 11 – “…when God sees that his children fall in love more with the nurse than with himself, then he removes the nurse, and causes their peace to be suspended and interrupted : he will not have the nurse to be loved more than himself.”

“When God is absent from us, then we have testimonies of our love to God, by our desires after him ; and when he is present, then we have testimonies of his love to us, by the shines of his countenance ; so that whether God shines or not, whether we have comfort or not, [...]

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The Providence of God

“[Providence] teaches that an infinitely wise, good, and powerful God is everywhere present, controlling all events great and small, necessary and free, in a way perfectly consistent with the nature of His creatures and with His own infinite excellence, so that everything is ordered by His will and is made to subserve His wise and [...]

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Calvin on Providence

“First, then, let the reader remember that the providence we mean is not one by which the Deity, sitting idly in heaven, looks on at what is taking place in the world, but one by which he, as it were, holds the helm, and overrules all events…But once the light of divine providence has illumined [...]

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“We must not think it strange if wickedness be suffered to prevail long and prosper long.”

“When God seems to connive at the wickedness of the wicked, nay, and to countenance it, by suffering them to prosper in their wickedness, it shocks the faith of good men, and proves a sore temptation for them to say, We have cleansed our hearts in vain (Ps 73:13), and hardens those in their impiety [...]

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The wrong perspective

“Our troubles can nearly all be traced to our persistence in looking at the immediate problems themselves, instead of looking at them in the light of God.” Martyn Lloyd Jones, Faith Tried and Triumphant, p 49.

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