It’s All Coming Together

“The steps of a good man are ordered by the LORD: and he delighteth in his way. Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down: for the LORD upholdeth
him with his hand.” Ps. 37:23-24

I find in these two verses the convergence of what we know as yesterday, today and tomorrow into a single, eternal point where God inhabits eternity in His high and lofty mount. It is a place where both foreknowledge and predestination come together; even as God is One in three. What seems a mystery to human convention and thought is not for those men and women of faith placed in Christ: for faith is the substance of that which is not seen, but can be spiritually discerned from the Scriptures.

When I read these verses this morning, I was struck with the exceedingly great riches that, as pure gold, I found there and mined when His Spirit took me deep into God’s bountiful mountain. It is a rich vein indeed; to plumb the depths of His Word. Here, we learn that the LORD Jehovah (the existing One) ordered the steps of the good man; not just the good steps; that is, only those with a good outcome, but all his steps. Without sin, every step would have a good and delightful outcome; even as God’s creation was good. However, with Adam’s transgression and the intrusion of sin, all men fell. However, here we find the ‘good man,’ one that ‘though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down: for the LORD upholdeth him with His hand.’  Here, we learn the wonder of God’s grace and tender mercy. These steps, including the ‘good man’s’ fall were all ordered; not the fall itself because God is not complicit with sin, but the step or condition that led to either obedience or disobedience. Call it what you will. A step could yield a temptation but a temptation is not sin. Yielding to it is. Thus, I see in these two verses a continuum of steps from birth to death; all ordered from eternity; under the auspices of an omniscient God’s foreknowledge; that is, seeing the end from the beginning, followed by His predestined steps.

In recent posts, I have discussed God’s sovereign and immanent will, wherein the Scriptures tell us that God established what was, is and will be before the foundation of the world. This, was done in accordance with the counsel of His own will and with knowledge of Adam’s fall and its consequences. If this plan or design was not true, then how could we take in faith, “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose?” (Romans 8:28) Do we believe in a God who, like us, must figure things out when we reach a particular point in the road, or do we believe in a God Who, knowing the end from the beginning, produced and blocked the movements of this mysterious; yet glorious play before it ever went on the road? I tend to believe the latter.

While you might think my view does harm to man’s ‘free will,’ making us all robots or actors, it doesn’t; no more than an actor who plays his own story in a strange but true reality show. It is man’s exercise of his moral free will… knowing right from wrong, and doing what is wrong, which leads to his fall. It is of God’s volition whether to uphold the fallen one in His hand. While I do not believe that men have the absolute free will that Adam possessed and used when choosing to eat of the forbidden fruit, man has retained his ‘moral free will.’ Notwithstanding, God from eternity has also exercised His right as Creator to order the steps or the conditions under which from eternity becomes for us Today reality. Once the first domino fell; that is, Adam, all men fell and were subject to death; physical and spiritual. God was under no duty to demonstrate His mercy; in that, ‘while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.’  No, not at all, but in so doing it is written that God predestined His elect; those who would be effectually called and who thus become the ‘good man; even those whom no man shall ever pluck from His hand.’

Why is this important? It is to me because it increases my faith in a truly omnipotent, omniscient, wise, and loving heavenly Father; Who through His foreknowledge, predestined and ordered our steps. This ‘ordering of our steps’ was not precipitated by His knowledge of what we would do or become, but what He planned to do in accordance with the counsel of His own will and good pleasure in knowing what the ‘good man’ did in context to the world around him.  Think of your life this way: Within this life and the next, every step for the good man is upheld by God’s hand and is ordered to crescendo… glorified, to rise and yet, rise again. In this, we can delight in our way and obeying Him when we come to each ordered step.