Samuel Morris was the oldest son of a tribal chieftain, a prince. But in his case, this was not a desirable position. Among his people, if a chief was defeated in war, he had to give his eldest son as a pawn or hostage until he could pay his war debts.  If payment lagged, this pawn was often tortured.

Samuel’s tribe had been defeated by a cruel and unjust chief who demanded a debt too great to pay. No matter what his father brought, the victorious chief claimed it did not fulfill the pledge. This failure to redeem his son would result in Samuel’s torture and horrible death.

Daily, Samuel was whipped with a thorny poison vine which implanted a fiery virus with every stroke. His wounds were never allowed to heal. Soon, he became so exhausted from loss of blood and fever that he could no longer stand or even sit up. Unbelievably, an even more horrible death awaited him. Already, they had dug the pit. He would be buried up to his neck.  His mouth would be propped open and smeared with a sweet mixture to attract ants from a nearby ant hill.  They would be followed by the dreaded driver ants which would kill him by devouring his flesh.

Before this could happen though, his enemies built a cross tree and threw Samuel on it for one final beating. In that moment, all hope and physical strength left him.  Suddenly, a great, blinding light, exploded around him. A loud voice commanded him to rise and flee.  Though everyone heard the voice and saw the light, they saw no one. Despite the fact that he was desperately ill, had been beaten until close to death and hadn’t eaten or drunk all day, Samuel’s strength was miraculously restored. Leaping up, he obeyed this mysterious voice and fled from the astonished natives with the speed of a deer.

This earthly prince, who had been put on a cross tree of torture as a ransom for his tribe, knew nothing of a heavenly Prince, who had been mocked and beaten as a prisoner, and had suffered a degrading death by slow torture on the tree – all for us.  All he knew was that some strange and invisible power had come to his rescue. This amazing experience happened on a Friday – a day Samuel never forgot. He called this “Good Friday” his Deliverance Day.

As night fell, Samuel realized his perilous journey had just begun. He had nowhere to go. He could not return to his own tribe, for this would bring the bitter revenge of their enraged conqueror.  If he was found by another tribe, they would return him to claim the large reward paid for an escaped pawn.  Worse, many jungle tribes were cannibals, some of the most savage races in the world.  And man was only one of his threats. Moving only in the dark, cobras, vipers, pythons and leopards posed deadly danger that he could not even see.

In the midst of this, another miracle occurred.  The same light that had flooded the scene of his intended execution again shone around him. As the Israelites had been led by a pillar of fire at night, Samuel was able to travel safely through the darkness, gathering food, and avoiding predators.  Days later, he emerged from the jungle into the settlement of Monrovia, capitol of Liberia. This, in itself, was amazing. At this time, all of Liberia was under the domination of jungle law. Monrovia alone was a slave liberating colony – the only community out of thousands where he would be truly safe.

On Sunday, Samuel was invited to attend church.  The interpreter was providentially sharing about Saul’s conversion, explaining how a light from heaven shone upon him and a mysterious voice spoke from above.  Samuel cried out, “That’s just what I saw! That is the same light that saved me and brought me here!”  Having the gospel shared with him, Samuel then received the Savior of Souls as the same “Unknown God” who had saved his body.  Although he later died at the young age of 21, his life was greatly used by God to turn people to repentance and faith.  Many were inspired to go to Africa and around the world as missionaries because of him.

Some argue that Jesus cannot be the only way to salvation because there are those who have never heard from a missionary. Even some Christians believe that while Jesus ALONE saves the world, He CANNOT save the world alone. But God shows that He is sovereign; He can save people in regions untouched by Christian missionaries. While God greatly uses missionaries, He can personally shine his light in the darkest night, in the most unreached areas, because, “even the darkness is not dark to Him.” And this reinforces the inescapable truth that, “There is no other name under heaven by which we must be saved.”

“We place absolute confidence in the Titanic.  We believe that the boat is unsinkable.” Philip A. S. Franklin, Vice President of White Star Line

“God Himself cannot sink this ship.”  Titanic Deckhand

“Require immediate assistance.  Come at once. We have struck an iceberg.  Sinking. Women and children in boats, cannot last much longer.” Titanic

“1500 lives lost – Titanic Plunges Headlong to the Depths of the Sea.”  Los Angeles Times, April 16, 1912

This Sunday, April 15, 2012 marks the 100^th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic. The largest moving object ever created to that date, it was a spectacle of luxury, opulence, and power, the triumph of man’s technological abilities. Yet, for all its glamor and current cinematic allure, it sadly was the Babel of the modern world, tempting, provoking and rejecting God while it pampered, extolled and glorified man.  While the pathos of its final moments has led to it being romanticized, we would be wise to carefully consider what God might have been providentially teaching through its demise. God is always at work in the lives of man, and every event either works for our condemnation or our justification.  The Titanic is no exception and accomplished both.

The Titanic was one of many arrogant expressions of man’s pride in the early twentieth century.  Considered unsinkable, it went down on its maiden voyage, taking 1500 lives and over eight million dollars of man’s investments with it.  Repeating the horrific scenario just twenty five years later, the “Uncrashable Hindenburg,” foolishly called the Titanic of the Sky, caught fire and was destroyed, killing 37 of its 95 passengers.  Not content with its technological failures, this same era saw man arrogantly proclaiming that humanity had moved beyond warfare, calling World War I the “war to end all wars.” Completing the trinity of pride, man then turned to the idol of money, borrowing huge amounts to invest in stocks and bonds. Economist Irving Fisher famously proclaimed, “Stock prices have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau.”  He would be proven wrong only one week later on October 29^th, when the stock market crashed, plunging America into the Great Depression.  Man believed in himself, his wisdom, his goodness, his power, his intellect and his technology, and over and over again, God taught him that this leads to disaster.

God clearly warns, “Pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall.” It is possible that the Titanic was God’s judgment to turn man away from this sin before it overtook him.  To think that God would have so harshly judged man for his pride is uncomfortable for our culture, which focuses so heavily on God’s love, tolerance and patience. But, perhaps we have forgotten that God is God alone and that we are not to put our trust in ourselves or the idols created by our own hands.  There were those on the Titanic who believed that man had offended God and that this was dangerous.  They were nervous.   Eva Hart, a Titanic survivor said, “My mother had a premonition from the very word ‘GO.’ She knew there was something to be afraid of and the only thing that she felt strongly about was that to say a ship was unsinkable was flying in the face of God. Those were her words.”

Consider just some of the improbable factors which cumulatively led to the Titanic’s destruction and heavy loss of life:

• There was no wind to dash the waves at the base of the iceberg, identifying its presence,
• The collision happened on a moonless night, making visualization of the iceberg extremely difficult.  In fact, it was reported that there had not been such a calm, moonless night for fifty years,
• Although the number of icebergs in the North Atlantic from 1900-1912 had averaged 95, the spring of 1912 saw 395, radically increasing the potential of a collision,
• The iceberg hit by the Titanic was the “blue” type, and reflected only the inky darkness of the sky, rendering it essentially invisible,
• The ship’s binoculars were misplaced,
• The Titanic held 20 lifeboats, sufficient for only 1/3 of its passengers because White Star management had been concerned that more boats would sully the aesthetic beauty of the ship,
• Further complicating the situation, because no lifeboat drills had been done with the passengers and crew, everyone was confused about how the lifeboats worked.  The only scheduled life boat drill had been scheduled for April 14^th, but had been inexplicably cancelled by Captain Smith,
•  As the Titanic began to sink, distress signals were sent.  The closest ship, the Californian, was only 20 miles away but had shut down their radios for the night and never heard the distress calls.
• Had the Titanic hit the iceberg a few seconds sooner or a few seconds later, it would likely have been damaged but not destroyed.
• As crewman Lightoller later said, “Everything was against us.”

The probability of all of these factors coming together as they did suggests that this event was no accident.  It seems that God was making a point.

Of course, in the mercy of God, He also providentially acts for our justification and our sanctification.  There are many good ends which have come from the Titanic, including mandatory lifeboats for every passenger, wireless operators on duty 24 hours a day, improved watertight integrity, and the formation of an International Ice Patrol which even moves icebergs when necessary.  However, perhaps more importantly, God providentially used the Titanic to highlight the blessing of a Christian worldview. To a world which had begun to embrace Darwin’s survival of the fittest, feminism and secular humanism, the Titanic heralded gospel centered living as men laid down their lives, obeying the injunction, “Women and children first,” even when this crossed class barriers, and even when it meant certain death.

“On that floating microcosm of opulence, consumerism, and elitism, an amazing event transpired. Men of power and prestige sacrificed their lives for women and children of the lower class… On this flotilla of self-absorption, self-sacrifice became a prevailing virtue … and the powerful chose death that the powerless might receive life.  The Christian virtue of self-sacrifice for the well-being of others and the biblical imperative for men to lay down their lives for women and children were chosen instead of self-preservation… There is a titanic lesson to be learned from the Titanic. During a moment of crisis, a virtue that is alien to fallen humanity permeated the collective culture on the Titanic. Sacrifice prevailed …and a watching world was affected…”  (http://www.ligonier.org/learn/articles/cultural-narcissism-and-a-titanic-lesson/)

Finally, the Titanic gives a picture of the call to salvation and to a refusal to be conformed to this world. Some of those who died on the Titanic could have survived had they been willing to get in a lifeboat.  Many lifeboats were launched half full because people didn’t really believe that the situation was really dangerous until it was too late.  For a time, the Titanic seemed warm, comfortable and trustworthy compared to the small, precarious and uncomfortable dinghies.  And so, rather than stepping out over the rails in faith, they chose to stay behind on this earth’s floating palace, and in so doing, lost their only hope for salvation and went down with the ship.

God’s providential lessons from the Titanic call today from the depths of the ocean and the winds of time.  Will we repeat her sin and reap her judgment? Are we still propping up the three drowned idols of technology, self-sufficiency and money?  We read the book of Judges and judge, confused at how the Israelites could endure God’s discipline time and time again only to return to doing what was right in their own eyes rather than honoring and obeying God.  But, are we any different? Have we learned the lessons of pride, humanism, godly manhood and faithful worship?  Our answer might just affect us as much as it affected them, as we blithely sail full speed ahead on the “RMS Titanic – One Hundred Years Later.”

Had mankind really been waiting over 6,000 years, “yet to see” God do such an amazing work? What of Paul?  What of Augustine, Calvin, or Tyndale? In truth, in almost every generation there have been men and women who have laid down their lives to serve the Lord, some of whom have paid the ultimate price.  And God has providentially used each of them to change the world.

Today, we celebrate one such dedicated and consecrated man, St. Patrick. While modern St. Patrick’s Day celebrations focus on green beer, leprechauns, four leaf clovers and corned beef, the real purpose of the holiday is to honor a man whose self-sacrificing life of intense faith led to the evangelization and transformation of the Irish culture.

Abducted from his homeland in Britain at just sixteen, Patrick had been taken to Ireland as a slave.  After six long years of cruel slavery, he had a vision of a ship and heard the voice of God calling him to escape.  “Come and see, for your ship is ready for you.  Go now; it is time!”  And so, even though an escaped slave faced death if caught, Patrick began his journey home.  After walking two hundred miles, Patrick arrived at the shore and saw the exact ship that had been in his vision.  If he had any doubts that God’s hand and voice had been guiding him, he entertained them no longer.

Initially, the captain refused to take him onboard, having no use for him, or his God.  Nonetheless, Patrick knew that God wanted him on this ship, so he knelt in prayer, waiting on God to providentially grant him passage.  Amazingly, despite his disdain and earlier refusal, the captain suddenly and inexplicably allowed him to travel, returning Patrick to his homeland.

Though Patrick’s homecoming was filled with joy, he never truly felt AT home. Diligently, he sought the Lord until one night he again had a vision and heard the voice of the Lord.  He saw people from Ireland calling him, “We beseech thee, holy youth, to return and walk among us again.” In obedience, Patrick returned to the land of his enemies to preach the gospel and set them free.

Here the power of God, working through this wholly consecrated and dedicated man, began to truly shine.  Merely hearing of Patrick’s return, the evil chieftain of Ireland, Miliucc, committed suicide.  He could not bear to be converted, fearing this former slave and his God so much that he would rather die than face him!  After discovering that Miliucc had died, Patrick turned to Tara, where Loiguire, the Irish high king, and his druids reigned.

Providentially, Patrick arrived shortly before the pagan Easter festival.  During this festival, the high king would light a bonfire and declare that light had returned to the earth at HIS command.  No one other than the high king could light the first Easter bonfire. Seizing the opportunity to give glory to God alone, Patrick built a huge bonfire and lit it, singing praises to God.  From a distant hillside, the pagan king saw it.  His druid priests trembled, quoting an ancient Druidic prophecy, “If the fire is not put out this very night, it will spread throughout the land and our traditions will be destroyed by the man who lit it and his coming kingdom.”

Loiguire rushed to confront Patrick and extinguish the fire of God and His kingdom.  He sent Lochru, the highest druid, to confront Patrick, insulting him, and slandering his God.  Though Patrick was willing to endure personal insult, he would not tolerate Lochru’s blasphemy and prayed, “O Lord, You can do all things. You have sent me here to spread Your Word. May this evil man who blasphemes You and Your Holy Name be picked up and die through Your power!”  Suddenly, Lochru was catapulted through the air and landed on the ground some distance away, dead. In rage, Loiguire called for Patrick’s death, but the earth began to shake and his soldiers panicked, until all of them, including Loiguire, knelt on the ground in terror.  Although Loiguire never became a Christian, his opposition to Patrick and his work died down in light of his fear of the true God.  Some of his children and his soldiers became Christians and the evangelization of Ireland began in earnest.

After serving in Ireland for twenty-six years, Patrick died on March 17^th.  The land he knew at his death differed greatly from the country he first encountered as a slave. He was the first known person to speak out against slavery and eventually succeeded in abolishing it in Ireland entirely. Human sacrifice was also abolished and Christianity was firmly established with 300 churches and over 120,000 converts.

Providentially, the words of the ancient druidic prophecy rang true.  The Easter bonfire was not put out and the light of God spread throughout the land, destroying the pagan traditions and ushering in the kingdom of Patrick’s God.  And the world was once again given a glimpse of what God triumphantly does, over and over again, through those who are fully and wholly consecrated to Him.

Source material: St. Patrick, Sower of Light in Ireland, Jennaya Dunlap

Do you dread slipping into that “much needed” sleep, only to be awoken by sounds down the hall of fussing, coughing, or worse?

Although your natural reaction in these moments might not be to praise God for His providential care, remember the suffering of past generations, suffering that had no pharmacy to call, no antibiotics to give.  Throughout history, mothers have held these late night vigils without knowing that they could call the doctor in the morning and see things significantly improve in the next twenty four hours! Praise God for His gracious gift of Penicillin!

When Adam and Eve disobeyed God in the garden, God told them that they would surely die. We know that they did die, spiritually, but the phrase, “thou shalt surely die,” means more than this.  In Hebrew it literally means, “dying you shall die.” One commentary puts it this way, “Death at once began its work; and a train of miseries, afflictions, and diseases began to appear, which at length, issued in death.” And so, bit by bit, from birth we die, struggling and suffering until our final moment. But God is merciful.  Not only has He personally overcome death, but He has also provided means to ease the misery of the curse while we are still alive. And this is what happened in the providential discovery of the famous antibiotic, penicillin.

In the early 20^th century, scientists were searching for effective antibiotics. Antiseptics could not reach bacteria sheltered in wounds below the skin’s surface. Worse, they destroyed the white blood cells essential to the body’s natural immune system. As a result, during WWI, about half of the 10 million soldiers who died, perished not from explosives, bullets, or shrapnel, but from infections in relatively mild wounds. A safe, antibacterial substance needed to be found.

One British scientist, Alexander Fleming, was studying cultures of Staphylococcus bacteria. Mid-way through the summer, he went on vacation, leaving about forty Petri dishes of the bacteria on his work bench. When he returned to work two months later, he began clearing this pile of plates, placing them into a shallow tray of disinfectant. Greeting a former lab assistant, Fleming began complaining about his busy workload. To demonstrate, Fleming carelessly grabbed one dish which had providentially remained safely above the Lysol.

Upon closer examination, Fleming noticed something strange. Although bacterial colonies covered most of the plate, there was one spot where they came to a screeching halt, forming a translucent ring around something they clearly did not like: a giant patch of mold.  What’s more, the bacteria closest to the mold were clearly disintegrating, as if the mold was releasing something so potent that it was killing them by the millions.

Fleming realized that this mold, Penicillium, was killing the Staphylococcus, and soon found it also killed bacteria known to cause other important human diseases.  Moreover, it was remarkably nontoxic to the body’s infection fighting white blood cells. When Penicillin was ultimately manufactured and mass produced, it became one of our most powerful weapons in treating pneumonia, meningitis, diphtheria, gangrene, tuberculosis, scarlet fever and childbirth infections. It triggered invaluable discoveries of many other antibiotics and allowed for safer surgical operations, organ transplants, and even open heart surgery.

Yet, as amazing as this “accidental” discovery was, we can see God’s providential hand even more clearly when we learn the rest of the story.

First, the mold required to make Penicillin was specific and rare – not just any fungus growing on the bathroom wall. When scientists later began an intensive search to find an equally effective penicillin producer, they found only two others out of one thousand samples tested. Fleming himself tried to reproduce his original discovery, searching through scores of different molds, from cheese to bread and shoes to dirt, but he never uncovered another with such antibacterial activity.

Where did this special mold come from?  Ultimately, it was traced to a mycology laboratory on the floor below. Amazingly, its spore wafted up the stairwell to settle on one of Fleming’s dishes precisely when its lid happened to be removed. Even this would have had to occur at a precise moment. The penicillin mold only acts on microbes when they are young and actively multiplying. If the mold spore had deposited later, the established bacterial growth would have prevented multiplication of the Penicillium spores and would have not have been affected by them.

So, a rare floating spore had to navigate up a stairwell, enter the lab, land on an open Petri dish that was usually covered, all precisely when the bacteria were young enough to be attacked?

Yes.

But that isn’t all. God also controlled the weather. Meteorological records show that an intense heat wave, which would have prevented the growth of the Penicillium spore, broke on the day that Fleming opened the dish.  The following cool spell created excellent conditions for mold growth. Later, just when the mold was sufficiently mature to release its deadly penicillin, weather records show that the temperature warmed again, allowing the bacteria to grow, come into contact with the mold, and die.

And God still wasn’t finished! While scientists searched around the world for a potent mold source for penicillin, it was providentially found right in the town where the scientists were already working, on a rotten cantaloupe! This mold was called Penicillium chrysogenum, and it produced 3,000 times more penicillin than Fleming’s original mold, finally making mass commercial production of penicillin possible.

In a world suffering from pain and disease, discoveries like penicillin are truly God’s gracious gift.  When scientists make their discoveries methodically and intentionally, we must thank God for giving them their incredible abilities.  But, in a discovery like this, God is shown to be totally, marvelously in control.  Fleming himself said, “I might have claimed that I [believed] that valuable antibacterial substances could be made by molds [based on] serious study… and deep thought. That would have been untrue…penicillin started as a chance observation…it came out of the blue.”

Not out of the blue, Mr. Fleming – it came straight from the providential hand of God!

A helpless baby, born amongst a subjugated people to a powerless young woman, cast out into the humblest of shelters, far from home. At first glance, all of the circumstances of this birth seemed to be either unimpressive, or coldly controlled by heartless humanity. Nothing about this event suggested that it was wholly orchestrated by the providential hand of God, sending His Son into the world to redeem, rescue and reconcile us to Himself. Precious few even noticed that the King of the Universe, our Savior, had entered the world. Yet, Jesus’ advent was no accident. It perfectly fulfilled at least fifteen Biblical prophecies, a likelihood exceeding a statistical probability of…

1 in 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.

In truth, every detail of the entire event was ordained and controlled by God to achieve His purposes.

The Bible is replete with stories like this. Not only in the Christmas narrative, but throughout the Scriptures, the curtain separating the supernatural and the natural is ripped back, spotlighting God purposefully in charge of each event, working it according to His will.  And this truth is not limited only to Biblical events. God is always providentially at work throughout history. There is not a square inch in the whole domain of human existence over which Christ does not cry, “Mine!”

Sometimes, God’s presence and purpose remain shrouded in mystery, and we wonder where He was and what He was doing.  But others events so clearly trumpet his power and presence that they almost seem to mirror the angelic proclamation in the skies over Bethlehem.  Our early American history contains many such providential events. So frequent and obvious were these providences in our early history, that George Washington once said, “No people can be bound to acknowledge and adore the invisible hand which conducts the affairs of men more than the people of the United States.  Every step by which they have advanced to the character of an independent nation seems to have been distinguished by some token of providential agency.”

One such event was Washington’s own miracle on Christmas Day.

In the months following the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the war had not gone well for the Americans. Washington had suffered many defeats, his men were tired, finances nearly non-existent, and morale and commitment were extremely low. The American cause was on the verge of collapse.

By the end of December, the British had trapped Washington near Trenton, NJ, and the end of the war seemed imminent. Yet, for some unknown reason, they did not finish off the job, choosing to wait to attack until the spring.

Washington decided to risk a surprise attack on the Hessian forces encamped in Trenton.  To do so, he had to lead 2,400 men across the Delaware River, through the night, battling a current strong with ice floes.  He then had to march down snow-covered roads, and do so without the British learning of his movements. So oppressive were the driving rain, snow, hail and sleet that only one of his three units was able to complete its mission. Yet, this same inclement weather also concealed them and aided in their approach. The Hessian commander discontinued his routine scouting patrols because he believed that the stormy weather would preclude any attack from the Americans, whom he called, “country clowns.”

God not only used the weather, but He also used a mysterious attack that remains unexplained to this day. The Hessians had been warned that the Americans were coming, and had been watching for them.  But earlier in the day, a small, mysterious band of Patriots had made a minor strike and then had retreated into the forest, leading the Hessians to believe that the enemy had come and gone. It wasn’t Washington’s troops at all, but it led the Hessians to let down their guard and become inebriated and inattentive in their Christmas revelries.

Washington was then able to mount a surprise attack on a drunk, sleeping and totally unprepared force. The battle was decisive and over in just ninety minutes. Morale was raised so high after the victory that Congress was able to raise troops, money and resources to continue the war that had just days before seemed hopeless and finished. And the Americans credited God’s redeeming providence for the victory.

Christmas Day in Trenton…Christmas Day in Bethlehem – one could say that they are simply the stories of men.  Or, we can take a peep behind the scenes and see God’s providential hand, working the deliverance of the Patriots, working the deliverance of mankind. God is always at work throughout history; we simply need the eyes to see it and the faith to believe it and acknowledge it.

George Washington once said,“The hand of Providence has been so conspicuous through this all…that [one] must be worse than an infidel and more than wicked that has not gratitude enough to acknowledge his obligation.

”Emmanuel…God with us…in Bethlehem, in Trenton, and today…“Praise the Lord, for He is good, for His mercy endures forever.”