SPROUL: Jesus tells us that not a single idle
word that we ever speak has been missed by the ear of God.
The God of Christian providence is the God who can help us. And He is a God who will help us
Remember the experience of man at the time of the first transgression.
That when sin first entered into the world, the immediate response
to sin was an experience of a sense of nakedness and shame. And the first reaction of our parents
was to hide from the gaze of God. The last thing Adam and Eve wanted to experience
at that moment was the eye of Providence. We want God to look at us when we need help,
but most of the time we want Him to overlook us when we want privacy.
And yet, in the teaching of Jesus, the concept of God’s vision, of God’s seeing us, was a very
comforting and positive idea. Do you remember how Jesus expressed it to His
audiences in the first century? And we have this little popular song, “His eye is on the sparrow,
and I know He watches me.” Then, “I sing because I’m happy.”
Well, that comes, of course, from Jesus’ teaching when He said that a sparrow never lands on the
ground—the older translation says that never is there a time when a sparrow falls that the Father
fails to notice it. And that sort of suggests the idea that God observes anytime a sparrow
gets wounded and falls to the ground. No, no, no. The point is that anytime that bird lands,
God knows it. He sees it. The point that Jesus was making is that there is not
the slightest detail that is overlooked by the gaze of God, that what God governs,
He manages in total awareness of what is going on. The hairs of our head are numbered.
Jesus tells us that not a single idle word that we ever speak has been missed by the ear of God.
On the one hand, you see that’s very frightening because that means there’s somebody up there
making a list and checking it twice. But the other side of it is that the God who sees
and the God who hears, ladies and gentlemen, is the God who cares. And I am not afraid to be known
intimately by a God who cares. Because the God of Christian providence is the God who
is up there. He’s the God who can help us. And He is a God who will help us.
Now, if I know He is there, that He can and He will, then I’m not afraid for Him to see me.
To me, there’s nothing more comforting to know that there is a divine Providence
who’s aware not only of every one of my transgressions
but also who is aware of every one of my tears, every one of my aches, and every one of my fears.