THE HAND OF GOD
The comfort of having a Sovereign God
By Frederick S. Leahy. Banner of Truth. 207 pages. £6.00
ISBN 0-85151-944-X
With a trusted author, a known publisher, and a vital subject, this book has less to prove than many.
The real questions are whether or not it is biblical and whether or not it is readable. If so, it doesn’t greatly matter that there may be other good books on this subject, that there are different emphases or approaches that could be adopted than those chosen, or that there are other things that might have been said another time around.
Frederick S. Leahy was a minister of the Reformed Presbyterian Church of Ireland and a former Principal of the Reformed Theological College, Belfast, who died in January 2006 on the day on which he had sent off the manuscript for this book. In it he aimed, in his own words, ‘to show that the sovereignty of God, as revealed in Scripture, is a comforting truth’. Ten chapters, each of around 20 pages, explore different aspects of the sovereignty of God in his relationship with his creatures and children. The title of each begins with ‘The Hand that …’ and the ten chapters tell us that the living God is the one whose hand creates, governs, provides, redeems, keeps, guides, chastens, blesses, enables, and judges.
This is a clearly written book which is well-structured and highly readable with numerous apt illustrations and relevant applications of those aspects of the doctrine of God’s sovereignty under discussion. The author’s stance is that of experimental Calvinism — a robust articulation of God’s control and authority over and involvement in all things, combined with a devout spirit and a determination that this great truth should impact the beliefs, attitudes, feelings, reactions, and conduct of all of God’s people. It is an unsurprising book — sound, straightforward, and familiar and, providing, as it does, a faithful, edifying, and warm exposition of one of the central and most far-reaching truths of the Christian faith, it will do good to all who read it.
David Field,
lecturer at Oak Hill College, London, and a member of Enfield Evangelical Free Church
