God's Will, God's World: God's World, God's Will

"No corner of creation has been abandoned by God to sin and the devil. We pray, praise, and eat together in order to show the world that there is no corner of creation (even here!) where God's will is not being done, even in those areas where God is not acknowledged as God. The world, sinful as it often is, is still God's world where God's will is being done" (William H. Willimon & Stanley Hauerwas, Lord, Teach Us: The Lord's Prayer and the Christian Life, 68).

God's All-Wise and Perfect Plan

"But why didn't God, when sin entered the world, simply squash Satan and his legion and finish the battle? Why does he put up with, even actively join the fight against, such rebellion when he could stop it at any time? The only answer we have to such questions is that all things are still working to and for his own glory, even though sin has ruined his creation (Rom. 11:36). Everything that happens, happens according to his all-wise and perfect plan" (K. Scott Oliphint, Covenantal Apologetics: Principles and Practices in Defense of Our Faith, 32).

Duties and Events

"Providence," wrote the seraphic Samuel Rutherford, "hath a thousand keys to open a thousand sundry doors for the deliverance of his own, when it is even come to a conclamatum est ["when it is all over with us"]. Let us be faithful, and care for our own part, which is to do and suffer for Him, and lay Christ's part on Himself, and leave it there. Duties are ours, events are the Lord's." The Lord will establish His kingdom in His own time and in His own way. Our task is that of obedience to His revealed word and will (Sinclair B. Ferguson, The Communicator's Commentary Series, Vol. 19: Daniel, 80-81).