Does God Control Everything?

1. 0:00Heidelberg Catechism, Lord’s Day 10, Question 27: What do you understand by the providence of God? Providence is the Almighty and the Almighty
2. 0:20and ever-present power of God, by which he upholds, as with his hand, heaven and earth and all creatures, and so rules them, that leaf and blade, rain and drought, fruitful
3. 0:31and lean years, food and drink, health and sickness, prosperity and poverty, all things in fact come to us not by chance.
4. 0:40but by his fatherly hand. Question 28: How does the knowledge of God's creation and providence help us? We can be patient in adversity, thankful in prosperity, and for the
5. 0:54future we can have good confidence in our faithful God and Father, that no creature will separate us from his love. For all creatures are so completely in his hand, that without
6. 1:06his will they can neither move nor be moved."
7. 1:11Here in Lord’s Day 10, the catechism begins to expand upon a doctrine we were just introduced to in Lord’s Day 9, namely the providence of God.
8. 1:20In the original Latin, providence literally means to see beforehand.
9. 1:24And this we know of course is something that only God is able to do.
10. 1:27We of course, try to plan things beforehand, but we don't see beforehand.
11. 1:32We don't see what's going to happen next.
12. 1:35But God does, God sees everything.
13. 1:38And not only does God see everything, but God also plans and orders everything, so that there are no accidents in your life.
14. 1:46Every poor crop year, every economic downturn, every phone call in the middle of the night, every troubling health scan comes to us from the God who sees, who knows, and who plans.
15. 1:59all things. Is this what our Lord teaches us in Matthew 10? Are not two sparrows sold for a penny, and not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father? God upholds heaven and earth and
16. 2:13all things in his hands so completely that nothing comes our way by chance or by happenstance but but only by his fatherly hand.
17. 2:23Now, if this is so, if God has planned everything out, then why do adversities come our way?
18. 2:30This is one of the questions we often have in this world.
19. 2:33If God has planned everything out, then why do adversities come our way at all?
20. 2:37After all, if God wanted to give us us an adversity carefree life, we know that God would be perfectly able of making that happen.
21. 2:46Well this is where the catechism's instruction becomes immensely helpful to us because in answer 28 we learn that there are three lessons that the doctrine of God's providence teaches us.
22. 2:57The first lesson is patience and adversity.
23. 2:59adversity.
24. 3:00The doctrine of God's providence teaches us to be patient in adversity.
25. 3:05James says, "Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, knowing that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness."
26. 3:14The apostle Peter speaks similarly when he says that the testing of your faith will be found to result in praise, glory, and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
27. 3:25When trials come our way, Satan tempts us to look at the world around us for comfort.
28. 3:30He tempts us to look away from God, but the doctrine of God's providence teaches us to look up to God.
29. 3:37The doctrine of God's providence teaches us reminds us to to echo those words of Psalm 123 as the eyes of a servant look to the hand of his master so our eyes look to the Lord our God till he has
30. 3:49mercy on us when trials come our way the doctrine of God's providence teaches us to ask what might God be teaching me through this trial how might God be refining me through this adversity?
31. 4:02How might God be shaping me and molding me more and more into the image of his son, the Lord Jesus Christ?
32. 4:09When we consider our trials in this light, we learn to be patient in adversity.
33. 4:15We learn to even echo those words of Psalm 119.
34. 4:18It was good for me.
35. 4:19that I was afflicted, that I might learn your statutes.
36. 4:24Well, if the doctrine of God's providence teaches us to be patient in adversity, then the converse must be true as well.
37. 4:30Not only can we be patient in adversity, but we can also be thankful in prosperity because prosperity also comes to us from God's fatherly hand.
38. 4:39Now, for many of us who live in the Western world, this perhaps might be the more difficult lesson to learn.
39. 4:47Because when things are going well, when our bank accounts are full, when our refrigerators are full, we can soon forget God.
40. 4:54We can soon forget that we must rely upon God, that we live not by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. We can soon begin to look at all the
41. 5:04things we've acquired. And we can be tempted to say, "Look at everything that we've accomplished."
42. 5:10This was Moses' concern in Deuteronomy chapter 8. As the people of Israel stood on the border of the Promised Land, they're about to enter this land flowing with milk and honey. They're
43. 5:19inherit all these houses that they didn't build and and these wells that they didn't dig and moses concern was that they would forget that these things had come to them not by their strength
44. 5:31but by the hand of their father who was in heaven and so he warned them saying take care lest you forget the lord your god He said, "Beware, lest you say in your heart,
45. 5:42'My power and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth.' You shall remember the Lord your God, for it is He who gives you power to get wealth,
46. 5:51that He may confirm His covenant that He swore to your fathers as it is this day."
47. 5:56When things are going well, the doctrine of God's prophecy providence reminds us to rejoice in the provisions of God and it also reminds us to resist the pride
48. 6:07of man. The doctrine of God's providence teaches us to sing from the heart, "All I have needed, thy hand hath provided, great is thy faithfulness, Lord unto me." In the third
49. 6:19place, the doctrine of God's providence teaches us to be confident for the future. We can be patient in adversity, thankful in prosperity, and for the future we can have good confidence in our faithful
50. 6:32God and Father that no creature will separate us from His love. For all creatures are so completely in His hand that without his will they can neither move nor be moved the first two
51. 6:46lessons of God's providence teach us in some ways to look back to look back on our lives and to see that God was teaching me to be patient and adversity
52. 6:54how God provided all these things and how I can be so thankful to God for his daily provision visions. But this third lesson summons us to look forward, to look to the future, to
53. 7:04ask the question, "Well, what about the future? God has been faithful in the past, but will He be faithful tomorrow and in the future?" The future, of course, is unknown to us.
54. 7:16None of us knows what tomorrow will bring. Tomorrow could very well be the very best day of your life. It could also be the worst day of your life. We don't
55. 7:25know what tomorrow will bring. But God does. God knows what the next day will bring. As David says in Psalm 139, "Your eyes saw my unformed substance, and in your book were written every single one of them. The days
56. 7:39that were formed for me, even when as yet, there were none of them.
57. 7:43When David thinks about the providence of God, it's as though God has written a book, and God has written a book with a chapter with your name on it.
58. 7:52He knows every page of your story.
59. 7:56We don't know what's on the next page of the story of our lives, God has told us what's on the very last page of this book of God's providence.
60. 8:04That as John says, "What we will be has not yet appeared, but we know that when He appears, when Christ appears, we shall be like Him, for we shall finally see Him as He is."
61. 8:15We don't know what the next day will bring, but we know what the last day will bring.
62. 8:19everlasting joy and glory with our Father who is in heaven.
63. 8:24For I am sure, says Paul, that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth,
64. 8:34nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.
65. 8:39Jesus our Lord. We can be confident for the future. As the Apostle Peter has said, after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ
66. 8:50will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. To him be the glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.
67. 8:59you

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