God oversees all of creation through His divine providence. He exercises general providence through natural laws that sustain life, like sunshine and rain. God also exerts specific providence by directly intervening to accomplish His purposes, as seen when He provided for Abraham, Joseph, Esther and Lydia. While God's providence may be difficult to recognize during hard times, Scripture assures us that God will take care of His people.

1. The Providence of God

2. Introduction
Providence is often misunderstood or not
even recognized by Christians today.
We can live in victory – IF – we know that God
will fight our battles for us.
One of the greatest deficiencies among God's
people is the lack of knowledge of, and faith
in, divine providence.

3. Providence Defined
“Divine providence, therefore, has reference
to the preservation, care, and government
which God exercises over all things that he
has created, in order that they may
accomplish the ends for which they were
created.” W. F. Tillett, Providence and
Power, p. 6
General Providence
Specific Providence

4. Providence Defined
General Providence
Sunshine, rain, air, seasons, water to drink
Psalm 65:9 You visit the earth and water it,
You greatly enrich it; The river of God is full
of water; You provide their grain, For so You
have prepared it.
Job 38:41 Who provides food for the raven,
When its young ones cry to God, And
wander about for lack of food?

5. Providence Defined
Specific Providence
God's intervention for specific results to
meet His purpose and plans
God uses two methods
Natural laws
Divine providence
While it is distinct from normal course of
nature, it is always in accord with these
natural laws. It is God working in a special
way, but in a non-miraculous way.

6. Scriptures to Study
Job 38:41 Who provides food for the
raven, When its young ones cry to God,
And wander about for lack of food?
Psalm 78:20 Behold, He struck the rock,
So that the waters gushed out, And the
streams overflowed. Can He give bread
also? Can He provide meat for His
people?"

7. Scriptures to Study
Matthew 6:28-30 28 So why do you worry
about clothing? Consider the lilies of
the field, how they grow: they neither
toil nor spin; 29 and yet I say to you that
even Solomon in all his glory was not
arrayed like one of these. 30 Now if God
so clothes the grass of the field, which
today is, and tomorrow is thrown into
the oven, will He not much more clothe
you, O you of little faith?

8. Scriptures to Study – Abraham
Hebrews 11:40 God having provided
something better for us, that they should not
be made perfect apart from us.
Genesis 22:8 And Abraham said, "My son,
God will provide for Himself the lamb for a
burnt offering." So the two of them went
together.
Genesis 22:13 Then Abraham lifted his eyes
and looked, and there behind him was a ram
caught in a thicket by its horns. So Abraham
went and took the ram, and offered it up for
a burnt offering instead of his son.

9. Scriptures to Study – Joseph
Genesis 45:7-8 7 And God sent me before
you to preserve a posterity for you in
the earth, and to save your lives by a
great deliverance. 8 So now it was not
you who sent me here, but God; and He
has made me a father to Pharaoh, and
lord of all his house, and a ruler
throughout all the land of Egypt.

10. Scriptures to Study – Esther
Esther 4:14 For if you remain
completely silent at this time, relief
and deliverance will arise for the
Jews from another place, but you
and your father's house will perish.
Yet who knows whether you have
come to the kingdom for such a
time as this?"

11. Scriptures to Study – Lydia
Acts 16:13-14 13 And on the Sabbath day
we went out of the city to the riverside,
where prayer was customarily made;
and we sat down and spoke to the
women who met there. 14 Now a certain
woman named Lydia heard us. She was
a seller of purple from the city of
Thyatira, who worshiped God. The Lord
opened her heart to heed the things
spoken by Paul.

12. Divine Providence
Matthew 5:45 that you may be sons of
your Father in heaven; for He makes
His sun rise on the evil and on the
good, and sends rain on the just and on
the unjust
James 1:17 Every good gift and every
perfect gift is from above, and comes
down from the Father of lights, with
whom there is no variation or shadow
of turning

13. Measure by Right Standard
Man's primary purpose in existence is to
honor and glorify God and to become
as God-like as it is humanly possible to
become. Now this being so, everything
that takes him away from God is evil,
and everything that brings him closer to
God is good. It is quite possible that the
frowns of this world are better than its
honors.

14. Measure by Right Standard
It is quite possible that illness is better
than health. The man who spends some
time on his back in a hospital room
often sees things in a clearer light than
he ever saw them while he was going
through life without a care.
I Believe Because, B. B. Baxter

15. Difficulty of Providence
It is very difficult to recognize as it is
approaching or while in the middle of a
situation.
Providence is only clearly seen in the
rear view mirror – as we look back at
the events – we see the hand of God.

16. God Will Take Care of You
Be not dismayed whate’er betide,
God will take care of you;
Beneath His wings of love abide,
God will take care of you.
Through days of toil when heart doth fail,
God will take care of you;
When dangers fierce your path assail,
God will take care of you.

17. God Will Take Care of You
All you may need He will provide,
God will take care of you;
Nothing you ask will be denied,
God will take care of you.
No matter what may be the test,
God will take care of you;
Lean, weary one, upon His breast,
God will take care of you.