The Unbreakable “Golden” Chain - Refuge, Security & Hope
By: Dan Seale
I ran down Pinecrest road in Sylacauga, Alabama, with no destination in mind. I just had to run. I had to think. First my mom and now my wife. Would Debbi, like my mom, die from breast cancer? Would my daughters 7, 5, & 1 year old experience what I did? Would I have to raise them by myself? Would God do this to me twice? While I ran God spoke to me. He spoke to me through His word and specifically Romans 8:28-30 and Psalm 23. Those truths of God’s fatherly care and His faithful shepherding and presence with me kept running in a loop in my head. A challenging question formed. Do I trust Him? Will I take God at His Word? It is a good and wonderful thing to study the Golden Chain in a systematics class at seminary. It is quite another to believe that truth when you feel like you are free-falling in a dark chasm with no bottom in sight. As I fell, this unbreakable golden chain caught me and began to slowly lift me back to the firm ground of God’s promises. This was not my last significant plunge into doubt and fear, but my confidence in the unbreakable chain has grown because each time the Lord has held on to me and brought me back to Him.
Do you believe that God’s grip on your life is unbreakable? Do you believe He is at work for your good? When suffering comes our way or even the temptation of success, it is important to know what good God is working for in our lives. We can’t insert our own definition of good, like various forms of pleasure, safety, health, power, success, and acceptance. The good that God is working for in our life is our complete salvation (Romans 8:29). If God can take the worse thing in history, the murder of his son upon the cross, and use it for the good of all creation, we can trust he is at work for our good as well. God is using all things, good and bad, to conform us into the image of Jesus, our brother with whom we are co-heirs. This truth is summarized by the word providence. Here are two definitions from the Westminster shorter catechism and the Heidelberg catechism.
The Westminster shorter catechism
Q: What are God's works of providence?
A: God's works of providence are, his most holy,1 wise,2 and powerful preserving3 and governing all his creatures and all their actions.4
Psalm 145:17. The Lord is righteous in all his ways, and holy in all his works.
Psalm 104:24. O Lord, how manifold are thy works! in wisdom hast thou made them all: the earth is full of thy riches.
Hebrews 1:3. Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high.
Psalm 103:19. The Lord hath prepared his throne in the heavens; and his kingdom ruleth over all.
Matthew 10:29-30. Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered.
Job 38-41.
The Heidelberg catechism
27.
Q. What do you understand by the providence of God?
A. God's providence is
his almighty and ever-present power, 1
whereby, as with his hand, he still upholds
heaven and earth and all creatures, 2
and so governs them that
leaf and blade,
rain and drought,
fruitful and barren years,
food and drink,
health and sickness,
riches and poverty, 3
indeed, all things,
come to us not by chance 4
but by his fatherly hand. 5
28.
Q. What does it benefit us to know
that God has created all things
and still upholds them by his providence?
A. We can be patient in adversity, 1
thankful in prosperity, 2
and with a view to the future
we can have a firm confidence
in our faithful God and Father
that no creature shall separate us
from his love; 3
for all creatures are so completely in his hand
that without his will
they cannot so much as move. 4
John Piper paints a beautiful picture of the benefits of believing and living inside of this massive promise of God’s sovereign rule known as providence.
“If you live inside this massive promise, your life is more stable and solid than Mount Everest. Nothing can blow you over when you are inside the walls of Romans 8:28. Outside of Romans 8:28 is confusion and anxiety and fear and uncertainty. Outside this promise of all-encompassing future grace, there are straw houses of drugs and alcohol and numbing TV and dozens of futile diversions. There are slat walls and tin roofs of fragile investment strategies and fleeting insurance coverage and trivial retirement plans. There are cardboard fortifications of deadbolt locks and alarm systems and antiballistic missiles. Outside, are a thousand substitutes for Romans 8:28. Once you walk through the door of love into the massive unshakeable structure of Romans 8:28, everything changes. There comes into your life stability and depth and freedom. You simply can’t be blown away anymore. The confidence that a sovereign God governs your good and bad and all the pleasures you’ll ever experience is an incomparable refuge and security and hope and power in your life.
— John Piper, Future Grace
I pray that this biblical truth will become a harbor amidst the storms, a refuge in the midst of chaos, a joy in times of prosperity, and a bedrock for all seasons of our lives.