What does the Bible say about luck?

"The lot is cast into the lap," that is, like a dice being thrown, with people depending on "luck" to favor them. But the believer depends on God. Even if the above methods are used, it is not luck that disposes the result, but the Lord, who intervenes in men's activities (v. 33).

"Casting lots causes contentions to cease, and keeps the mighty apart (v. 18). This is one good way of settling arguments, for Proverbs 16:33 tells us, "The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the Lord." it is not merely chance, but the Lord disposes the matter as He sees fit.

If we take the whole universe there is not a single thing, however small, left to chance. Nothing can happen without God's commission or permission. He either permits it, or it is according to His will. God permitted man to fall. If you could take all the mystery out of the Bible you might have proof that it was not of divine origin. The wisest amongst us would own that he has but touched the fathomless depths of the word of God.

We see how everything is ordered of God, not by Ruth. She does not know in whose field she is gleaning: "Her hap was to light on a part of the field belonging unto Boaz." Humanly speaking, it was Rebekah's hap to be at the well when Abraham's servant came in search for a bride for his master's son; it was the hap of the woman of Samaria to meet the Stranger from Judea, who had such words of life and grace to tell her. But we know that what is man's "hap" is God's purpose, the purpose of love of Him who sees the end from the beginning and plans it all. His eye was upon Rebekah, and He made her go out to the well the first to meet the servant of Abraham. He constrained the woman of Samaria to go where she would meet the Son of God, and have her life transformed by the message He brought her. He knows and He draws each of us, at the appointed time and in the appointed way, to the place of blessing. How wonderful are His ways, and what love there is behind what seem to be the merest incidents. God is absolutely sovereign. All our blessings are from Him alone. The work of grace, from beginning to end, is His. Therefore to Him alone is all the praise.

Nor, as it appears, did Ruth on setting out to glean intend to seek the field of Boaz, her mother-in-law's kinsman. Early in the morning she went forth humbly as a poor stranger to gather up a gleaner's portion of corn wherever opportunity offered, not however, without a firm trust that the God of Israel under Whose wings she had come to take refuge, would guide and protect her. "And Ruth the Moabitess said to Naomi, Let me, I pray, go to the field and glean among the ears of corn after (him) in whose sight I shall find favour. And she said to her, Go, my daughter. And she went; and she came and gleaned in the fields after the reapers; and she chanced to light on an allotment of Boaz, who was of the family of Elimelech" (Ruth 2:2-3). To outward seeming, Ruth by "chance"' chose the field of Boaz, but to faith it was by God's devising and directing that she went to the field of a pious and gracious man who was her mother-in-law's kinsman by marriage, and in whose eyes she quickly found favour.

There is no such thing as blind fate, but there is a Providence that guides and governs the world. "The lot is cast into the lap, but the whole disposing thereof is of the Lord" (Prov. 16:33). … Providence is God's ordering all issues and events of things, after the counsel of His will, to His own glory. … The wheels in a clock seem to move contrary one to the other, but they help forward the motion of the clock, and make the alarum strike; so the providences of God seem to be cross wheels; but for all that they shall carry on the good of the elect. … God is not like an artificer that builds a house, and then leaves it, but like a pilot He steers the ship of the whole creation.

We leave this beautiful picture when we read verses 11 and 12. God cannot forget the existing state of departure and sin that marked the people in Isaiah's day They had forsaken Jehovah; they had forsaken His holy mountain, whereon stood His temple. And to what had they turned? The rest of the verse reveals it, though the translation is rather obscure. In Darby's New Translation we find "Gad" substituted for "that troop," and "Meni" for "that number," with footnotes giving an explanation to the effect that the former word indicates, "Fortune, or the planet Jupiter," and the latter word, "Number, or Fate, or the planet Venus."

The people had turned aside to worship the heavenly bodies, and connected their false worship with the gambling instincts, which are so strong in fallen humanity. If things went well it was Fortune. If badly, it was Fate. In the minds of the people these were deities to whom they made offerings of food and drink. As so often "table" is a figure indicating solid food, as on the table of showbread, and wine furnished the drink. This throws some light on the Apostle's words in 1 Corinthians 10:21, where he mentions, "the cup of devils," and "the table of devils." The devils of this verse were of course demons; and demon power lay behind the "Gad" and the "Meni," mentioned here.

When in verse 12, God says He will "number" them to the sword, there is an allusion to the name "Meni," which means number. The people are plainly told that judgment and death lay before them. They were rejecting the law of God. We are living in an age when men are rejecting the grace of God; and to do this is more serious than to reject law, as we are told in Hebrews 10:20. When the Gospel is preached, let this be made very plain.

Well, these are figures that enter into our common everyday speech. We talk about the "flight of time" and "the wheels of fortune," and sometimes life seems so complicated that we talk of "wheels within wheels," just what Ezekiel saw in his vision. And it may be that to some, time and circumstances seem so completely out of gear that they conclude that they are the victims of blind chance. But these wings and wheels that Ezekiel saw were not blind or out of control, they were attached to living creatures that had great intelligence, moreover they were under very definite control as we shall see.

Then is pursued from ver. 11 another consideration, not merely an end so dark and imminent, but a course meanwhile so precarious that no advantages can secure. "I returned and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of knowledge; but time and chance happens to them all. For man also knows not his time: as the fishes that are taken in an evil net, and as the birds that are caught in the snare, even so are the sons of men snared in an evil time, when it falls suddenly upon them" (vers. 11, 12). The providential season may never come, without which the swift and the strong, the wise and the prudent and the instructed fail; and ruin ensues, instead of the prize. Is then wisdom useless? Far from it; and this he illustrates in vers. 13-15. "I have also seen wisdom under the sun on this wise, and it seemed great to me: there was a little city, and few men within it; and there came a great king against it, and besieged it, and built great bulwarks against it: and there was found in it a poor wise man, and he by his wisdom delivered the city; yet no man remembered that same poor man."

Dear Friend! I know not what your opinion is after reading this booklet. Some people, no doubt, will consider the storm, the provided shelter, the company, the speaker, his remarks, the remarkable meeting in the railway train, to be all due to mere chance and unworthy of further consideration. Certainly the happy women my friend met three years afterwards, would entirely disagree, for evidently God ordained everything for their salvation. And, by whatever means this booklet has reached you, please do not attribute your possession of it to mere "chance," for a God of love is seeking your welfare and waiting to bestow on you His richest blessing for time and eternity.