Audio Transcript

Are motorcycles for fools? That’s today’s question. And we’re speaking of recreational motorcycles here, of course — their primary function in the States. And it’s really a question about providence more than anything else. Here’s the email: “Hello, Pastor John. My name is Ian, and I live in the beautiful city of San Diego. My girlfriend and I got into a discussion recently about riding motorcycles for fun. I stated that if we got married, I wouldn’t ride motorcycles because to me it feels unwise to put myself in a greater risk of dying and thus leaving her alone, or if we had kids, leaving them without their father and leaving their mother to support all of them, because riding for us is just recreational. She believes that if I died riding, it was God’s will for me to die anyways, and taking precautions, like not riding, is to live in fear, while for me it feels like a wise decision to not take that unnecessary risk when others’ livelihoods are at stake.

“I’m having trouble reconciling the sovereignty of God in our lives, but also making wise decisions. It’s true that God oversees every event that happens in our lives, regardless of our precautions, but in my mind I feel like decisions that we make will also impact our future. But aren’t crashes and misfortune in the hand of God, too, making precautions like these worthless? Am I living in fear? Or am I being prudent and wise in not wanting to ride motorcycles? Thank you, Pastor John!”

There are two sentences in Ian’s question that I think need some correction. And in the process, perhaps I can clarify a way of thinking about God’s sovereignty and our risks and our fear that will shape the way he and his girlfriend and all of us make our decisions. One of those sentences expresses Ian’s opinion, and the other one expresses his girlfriend’s opinion (at least the way he articulates it).

All-Governing Sovereignty

Let’s take Ian’s sentence first. He says, “But aren’t motorcycle crashes and misfortune in the hand of God, making precautions like these worthless?” Now, I’m not sure Ian really believes that — that God’s sovereignty over motorcycle crashes makes precautions like not riding a motorcycle worthless — because he had just said in the previous sentence, “It’s true that God oversees every event that happens in our lives regardless of our precautions. But in my mind, I feel like decisions that we make also impact our future.” So, it sounds to me like, Ian, you’re waffling. Precautions make a difference in our future, and precautions seem worthless in making a difference in view of the sovereignty of God.

So, we need to think for a minute. We need to ponder what’s going on here in that ambiguity and what is the truth here. And I think we can settle quickly that, according to the Bible, God governs the smallest details of nature and human activity — including motorcycle riding, including all accidents and non-accidents — as well as the greatest events in government and history and the universe, the solar system, the galaxies.

Jesus said, “Not one bird will fall from the sky apart from your Father’s will” (see Matthew 10:29). That’s tiny, micro providence. Proverbs 16:33: “The lot [dice] is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the Lord.” Isaiah 40:26 says not one of the stars is out of place because of God’s power. Ephesians 1:11: “[God] works all things according to the counsel of his will.” James 4:15: “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” So, the sovereignty of God over all things is not at issue.

“The sovereignty of God over human events does not make human choices about those events worthless.”

I think Ian agrees with that given what he says. But he does not seem to be as sure that taking precautions makes any difference in the outcome of our lives if God is sovereign over everything. That’s where he seems to be waffling. He says, “But aren’t motorcycle crashes in the hand of God, making precautions worthless?” Now, the answer to that question is a clear and emphatic no; they’re not worthless. They are not. The sovereignty of God over human events does not make human choices about those events worthless.

Over Ends and Means

The reason is very simple. God not only predestined the events that he wills to come to pass, but he also predestines the means by which those events come to pass.

If God predestines that there be a building, he also predestines that there be builders who build it. If God predestines that a person not starve to death, then he also predestines that they have food and that they eat it. If God predestines that you do not fly off a mountain cliff on your motorcycle, he also predestines that you not enter the curve doing 80 miles an hour. If God predestines that a nail be driven through a two-by-four, he also predestines that someone hit it with a hammer. If God predestines that someone be saved, he also predestines that someone bring that person the gospel.

It doesn’t make any sense to speak of God’s all-governing sovereignty as if it only designed the ends and not the means to those ends. It wouldn’t be all-governing if that were the case. Why would we think that? If he governs all things, he governs all secondary causes, all means to ends.

For the loss of a nail, the shoe was lost. For the loss of the shoe, the horse was lost. For the loss of a horse, the battle was lost. For the loss of the battle, the war was lost. For the loss of the war, the nation and the kingdom was lost. Every one of those causes, secondary causes — going all the way back to the nail that fell out of the horseshoe — is in the hand of the Lord just as much as the final outcome of a nation that falls. He sets up nations, he takes down nations, and he governs the billions of causes that develop over decades to bring a nation up or take a nation down. Any one of those causes may alter the outcome of our lives, depending on whether God wills it to be so.

So, it’s just wrong to say that because God governs final outcomes, our efforts to promote or hinder those outcomes are worthless. That’s just wrong. That would be a great, unbiblical mistake. God ordains means as well as ends, and our action is part of those means. So, not riding a motorcycle is a very good way not to be killed on a motorcycle. There is a real, causal connection between not riding motorcycles and not being killed on motorcycles.

Fearless Precautions

Now, the other sentence in that question is not Ian’s statement, but the one he says his girlfriend spoke. He says, “She believes that if I died riding a motorcycle, it was God’s will for me to die anyway and taking precautions like not riding is to live in fear.” Now, there’s more than one problem with that sentence, but we’re just going to take one — namely, the one about fear. She says, “To take precautions is to live in fear.” I doubt she really said that. I think he’s reporting it not quite exactly right.

I don’t think she really believes that, because that is certainly not necessarily true. And if she’s thought about it for five seconds, she’d know it’s not necessarily true that to take precautions is to live in fear. I take precautions by locking my doors every night. I take precautions by putting the car in the garage. I take precautions by backing up my hard drive on my computer. I take precautions by wearing a seatbelt. I take precautions by praying for protection before I go to bed at night. I take precautions by having health insurance. And on and on and on.

“God ordains means as well as ends, and our action is part of those means.”

The actual experience of fear in my life is almost totally absent. I don’t even think about it. It does not dominate my life. I hardly even give a thought to those things. Fear is rarely a conscious experience in my life. So, taking precautions doesn’t have to mean that you are living under the domination of fear. I have no intention of owning a motorcycle or going skydiving, for example. I don’t give them a thought. They don’t affect my fear level at all one way or the other.

What Risks Are Right?

So, the question that Ian and his girlfriend face regarding the motorcycle is this: What risks in life are wise and loving? So, instead of answering that question, which I don’t have time to do now, I’m going to send you to APJ 1446, where I do answer that question. I spent a whole session on it. The title of that episode is “How Do I Take Risks Without Being Unwise?” And I give six criteria there for answering that question — how to be wise, how to be loving and yet take appropriate risk. Because we all do every day. Life is a risk, right? You cannot not risk.

But the two main points here are (1) the sovereignty of God does not make precautions worthless, and (2) taking precautions need not imply that we are living in the grip of fear.