CREEDE HINSHAW: Preaching on the sovereign will of God

I probably should cut him some slack. That radio preacher probably didn’t mean to imply it was God’s will four sisters drowned in the icy waters of the North Atlantic.

Maybe he didn’t think through what he was saying. Maybe he was a young preacher who didn’t know any better. Maybe I was only half-listening.

But when a preacher is determined to preach about the sovereign will of God, that proclaimer of the word had better think through the sermon very, very carefully if he tells a heart-breaking story.

The tragic tale employed by this preacher is well-known in Christian circles, even though the year was 1873: Horatio Spafford, a happily married husband, had stayed behind when his wife and four daughters sailed to England. Their ship sank; 226 persons drowned including the four daughters, ages 2-9. In response to the shipwreck and perhaps to address his guilt for being absent from his family, Spafford wrote the well-known Christian hymn “It Is Well With My Soul.”

No reasonable soul could fail to be shaken by hearing about a husband and wife suddenly bereft of their entire family. Horatio Spafford, stricken by the unmitigated tragedy, channeled his grief meaningfully by taking up pen and paper.

The story, as I have outlined in this column, will “preach,” as we homileticians like to say. It’s not a new story, but it’s a good one. There are countless ways a person, overwhelmed by the billows of life and sustained by faith, can begin to move beyond powerlessness and despair.

But that was not the approach of this radio preacher who, presumably referring to Horatio Spafford, glibly declaimed how the sovereign God has a plan for everybody. Those simplistic words clattered to the floor, callous and trite. At no point did the preacher try to enter into the grief of this family. Tragedy became an object lesson: If we trust Jesus, he promised, we’ll be victorious. God’s plan is always a good one.

There is much truth in that conclusion in a general sense. Mr. and Mrs. Spafford raised more children, devoted themselves to love and good works, and were exemplary Christians all their life. I suspect, however, they never completely recovered from the drowning death of their girls.

The gaping problem with the sermon was that the preacher, determined to make everything work out neatly, drew the clear implication that it was “God’s sovereign plan” for these four little girls, terrifyingly separated from their parents, to drown.

If somebody pontificates on “God’s plans” by telling a sob story, that person must be extremely careful to avoid assigning the tragedy to God’s responsibility. The listener knows this is not God’s will.

Tragedy and disaster can be overcome; Paul affirms (Romans 8) “All things work together for good.” But that’s a far cry from the distorted implication that a sovereign God who plans everything, creates the circumstances where little girls drown.