SPEAKER_01
0:20 Philadelphia, July the second, seventeen seventy six. 0:23 There's a document sitting before a crowded room. 0:27 The room's hot, the delegates are afraid, and really they have every reason to be. 0:31 If they sign this document, they are committing treason, surely, but they're also likely signing their own death warrants. 0:39 And one of the delegates pipes up and says what, you know, most cautious men would say, that the country is not yet ripe for independence. 0:47 But he receives an answer from a Scotsman in a black clerical gown. 0:51 Not ripe, sir. 0:52 In my judgment, the country is not only ripe for the measure, it is in danger of rotting for the want of it. 0:59 That man was John Witherspoon. 1:01 He's a fifty-three year old Presbyterian minister from Yester, Scotland. 1:05 He is from the same line of clergymen as the famous Reformed theologian John Knox, and for all intents and purposes, John Witherspoon was a genius. 1:12 He's said to have read the entire Bible by the age of four, and he was at the University of Edinburgh at the age of thirteen. 1:18 And at this time, he is the president of the College of New Jersey, Princeton, and has only been in the country for eight years. 1:25 And he would go on to be the only active clergyman to sign the Declaration of Independence. 1:30 In fact, when he came into the room to sign the document, he purposefully left his preaching robes on. 1:36 Now, six weeks prior, Witherspoon preached a sermon that was printed and circular, you know, circulated all around the American colonies at the time. 1:43 It was the only political sermon that he had ever published. 1:47 He titled it The Dominion of Providence Over the Passions of Men. 1:51 And the text he used was Psalm 7610. 1:53 So I'm actually going to read it from the King James Version, as that would have been the version that Witherspoon would have used. 1:58 So here goes Psalm 76.10. 2:01 Surely the wrath of man shall praise thee, the remainder of wrath shalt thou restrain. 2:07 So there's a very specific claim here, guys. 2:10 The rage of wicked men does not run loose. 2:13 It is not untethered. 2:16 It serves for God's glory. 2:18 And then whatever's left over, God straps to his own waist like a belt. 2:23 So Witherspoon preaches this sermon in public, you know, ahead of a war that most observers thought would be impossible to win. 2:29 He preaches that sermon and then immediately had to live it out. 2:32 Because in November of that year, he made the decision to shut down Princeton because the British were closing in on the town. 2:38 He evacuated the campus just before the Redcoats took over Nassau Hall. 2:42 They burned the library and they even burned down his own personal home. 2:45 And the following year, at the Battle of Germantown, his own son James, who was serving as a major in the Continental Army, was killed. 2:53 So the man who preached that God holds the wrath of men on a leash had now lost his son to it. 2:59 Witherspoon stayed in Congress until 1782. 3:02 He served on over a hundred committees and actually rebuilt Nassau Hall on his own dime. 3:06 He went blind in 1792, and he died a couple of years later in 1794 on his farm outside of Princeton. 3:14 Many of his students actually went on to build the young country. 3:18 There was a president, a vice president, dozens of congressmen, and three Supreme Court justices. 3:24 I mean, that's just a huge part of his legacy. 3:27 Now turn with me to Genesis 50. 3:30 So we have Joseph here, and his brothers are terrified. 3:34 They're kneeling before their brother that they had sold into slavery. 3:37 Joseph now has the power of death over them and the ability to exact revenge for the evil that was delivered to him. 3:44 But let's pick it up and we'll just keep going with the King James Version, starting in verse 18. 3:49 And his brethren also went and fell down before his face, and they said, Behold, we be thy servants. 3:56 And Joseph said unto them, Fear not, for am I in the place of God? 4:01 And now, verse 20, we've been building to this. 4:04 But as for you, ye thought evil against me, but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass as it is this day, to save much people alive. 4:16 So let's unpack this. 4:18 Joseph didn't say that, you know, what the brothers had done was not evil. 4:24 Like Joseph straight up acknowledges that they did it intentionally and that it was evil. 4:28 Like they were guilty of wickedness. 4:30 Joseph really was thrown into the pit. 4:32 Like he really was a slave. 4:34 He really had a decade plus of his life essentially deleted. 4:37 The text also does not say that this was God somehow cleaning up a mess after the fact, right? 4:42 I mean, the verb used to describe these situations is actually the same. 4:46 Joseph's brothers meant to do what they did, and God also meant to do what he did. 4:52 There are two intentions for the same event, but God's intentions were the sovereign one, right? 4:57 And God's intentions were for good. 4:59 And that's Psalm 76, 10 in narrative form, right? 5:02 The wrath of man praising God, the remainder worn like a belt. 5:08 And Joseph only had this perspective at the end of all this tumult, right? 5:13 This was after the pit. 5:14 This was, you know, after the incident in Potiphar's house. 5:17 This was after he was left in prison for an extra couple of years because the cupbearer forgot about him. 5:21 He could only connect the dots looking backwards. 5:24 Now listen to me, men. 5:26 Providence is not a doctrine that you learn in the good years and then cash in during the bad years. 5:32 It's a doctrine you stake on something before you know what the outcome is going to be. 5:37 And remember, Witherspoon preached the sovereignty of God over the wrath of man in May and then lost his son in October and he didn't take it back. 5:46 And that's really the test that counts. 5:48 It's really easy to affirm the sovereignty of God when you're, you know, relaxing by a bonfire with a delicious beverage and a cigar. 5:55 But what about a month later if you're standing over the open grave with one of your loved ones in the casket? 6:01 Most men actually just look at the providence of God as some sort of a you know optimistic Bible verse bumper sticker. 6:08 It only works until you get bad news from the doctor. 6:11 Or until you find out that your wife had an affair, or until you lose your job, or until one of your kids goes prodigal. 6:18 Then it turns out that you never actually believed in the goodness and sovereignty of God over evil. 6:24 We should all strive to be men like Witherspoon. 6:27 We should let our yes be yes and our no be no. 6:30 We should rest knowing that our God is good and that he has the dragon on a leash. 6:35 And because of that, we can trust him.