BEHIND EVERY FENCE POST A CALVINIST?

BEHIND EVERY FENCE POST A CALVINIST?

Marvin Olasky wrote in WORLD magazine 4/11/20 issue: Some Christians have said things like: Let’s continue to meet. God will protect us. Here’s what John Calvin wrote in his INSTITUTES OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION (Book 1, chapter 11): “For he [God] who has set the limits to our life has at the same time entrusted us its care. He has provided means and helps to preserve it. …Thus if the Lord has committed to us the protection of our life, our duty is to protect it; if he offers helps, to use them; if he forewarns us of dangers, not to plunge headlong; if he makes remedies available, not to neglect them.”

  What’s the practical application? One Sunday in 1862 pastor and soldier Robert L. Dabney preached a sermon on God’s “special providence,” noting that “every shot and shell and bullet was directed by the God of battles.” Not much later Dabney found himself under fire and took cover behind a large gatepost. A nearby officer kidded him: “If the God of battles directs every shot, why do you want to put a gatepost between you and special providence?” Dabney replied, “Just here the gatepost is the special providence.”