God’s All-encompassing
providence
All history and our personal
lives and death.
Health and sickness, riches
and poverty
Protection
Martyrdom
Creation and providence
• God having made the world then abandons it?
• No! He upholds it and governs it by providence.
• What is providence-give me a definition.
• The almighty and everywhere present
• power of God whereby he upholds and governs
• Heaven, earth and all creatures.
• What does upholds mean?
• Preserves and sustains (keeps alive).
What it covers
Angels
Devils
All men
Men’s hearts
Men’s actions
Men’s thoughts and words
Men’s sinful deeds
Believer’s sins
Hardening hearts
• Psalm 103:20-21
• Job 1:12
• Jer.10:23
• Prov.21:1
• Prov.16:9
• Prov.16:1
• Ps.33:10, Amos 3:6
• Isaiah 63:17
• Ex.4:21
More-match the verse to the subject
1. Acts 14:17, Jer.5:24
2. Gen.4:1, Matt.10:29
3. Isaiah 45:7
a. Birth, life and death-even of small
animals
b. The life of his people
c. Peace and calamity (disasters)
4. Psalm 31:15
d. Everything
5. Psalm 103:19
e. Weather/seasons, rain or drought, fruit
and barrenness, crops and food.
Answers
1. Acts 14:17
Jer.5:24
2. Gen.4:1, Matt.10:29
e. Weather/seasons, rain or drought, fruit and barrenness, crops and
food.
a. Birth, life and death-even of small animals
3. Isaiah 45:7
c. Peace and calamity (disasters)
4. Psalm 31:15
b. The life of his people
5. Psalm 103:19
d. Everything
G
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D
R
U
L
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S
God does bring all things to pass, directing and
controlling them, even the actions of the wicked all to
accomplish his own purpose and good pleasure.
Isaiah 44:28, 46:9-10.
The mystery is that God uses wickedness without
himself being responsible for wickedness.
It is a miracle that he uses all things for the salvation
of his people-doing this for the sake of Christ who
suffered, died and rose again for them.
God’s wills
•1. His will of decree (eternal)-always carried out
•2. His will of precept (what he commands)-often
disobeyed.
Good out of evil
Joseph
Christ
• “While
by means of the wicked God performs
what he has secretly decreed, they are not
excusable as if they were obeying his precept,
which of set purpose they violate according to
their lust.”
Calvin
What advantage is that to us?
• Since God is our faithful Father he governs all things that nothing
separates us from his love and all is for our good.
• Romans 8:28, 35-39
Saeed Abedini imprisoned for years in Iran while
his family misses him in the US.
How will this show in our lives?
• We will be patient in adversity and thankful in prosperity and in all
that happens place our trust in our faithful Father.