In Mike Davenport's sermon on divine providence, he explores Chapter 5 of the 1689 SLBC, emphasizing the understanding that God, as the Creator, upholds, directs, disposes, and governs all things by His most wise and holy providence. He refutes the idea that God is detached from His creation and instead argues that God is actively involved, wielding infinite power and wisdom. The sermon delves into the concept of providence, using Webster's 1828 dictionary definition to explain it as God's care and superintendence over His creatures. Davenport stresses the comprehensive nature of God's providence, which encompasses all things—great and small—and operates through the channels of wisdom and holiness. The sermon highlights the use of second causes, illustrating how God's decrees are carried out, sometimes necessarily, freely, or contingently. Furthermore, it acknowledges the complexity of understanding how God's providence interacts with the sinful actions of men and angels, without making God the author or approver of sin. The practical implications of divine providence are discussed, including the avoidance of anxiety, fatalism, and presumption, urging believers to trust in God's sovereign control.

We come tonight to the subject of divine providence, divine providence. Chapter 5 already in our confession. In our confession, paragraph one, God the good Creator of all things in His infinite power and wisdom doth uphold, direct, dispose and govern all creatures and things from the greatest, even to the least, by His most wise and holy providence, to the end for the which they were created, according unto His infallible foreknowledge and the free and immutable counsel of His own will, to the praise of the glory of His wisdom, power, justice, infinite goodness, and mercy." So first we see in this the source of providence, the source of providence. It is God, the Good Creator, not just of some things, but the Creator of all things. He is not detached from His creation.

There are many today who have embraced an evolution, but they say, hey, God created all things through this evolutionary process, and then he has stepped back, and as if he wound up a watch, and the watch is now running, and God is detached. But they say God, the Good Creator of all things, is the source of this divine providence. He's still involved with His creation. We see as well, secondly, the credentials of this Creator. What are His credentials?

Well, infinite power and wisdom. So not only are the actings of Providence justified by the fact that he is the Creator of all things. But he also has infinite power and infinite wisdom. This providence flows out of an endless source of power. He will bring it to pass.

He hasn't decreed something and is setting in motion the things to bring it to pass and unable to do so. He has infinite power, infinite being limitless. It doesn't go so far and then stop. Children often look at their dads and my dad he can pick that car up. Well my dad can pick a naval ship up, Right?

There's all the bragging of what dads are able to do and it's like, oh, if my child only knew. Right? There's this sense that that dad's great, he's strong, and he is compared to the child. He can do a lot of things that that son or that daughter can't do, but our God, he has infinite power and he decrees and then his power sets forth in motion the things that he has decreed. But he also has an endless source of wisdom, endless wisdom.

Not only does he have the power to bring it to pass, he will do what is best. He will do what is best. He will do what is best. And so we can take comfort in that, that God is going to act out of this infinite power. He will bring it to pass and this infinite wisdom.

He will do what is best. Well we've used the word Providence a few times already. What is Providence? It's a city in Rhode Island. It's more than that.

But hey, I think there was a reason why they named it Providence Rhode Island. But what is Providence? Well, Webster's Dictionary, the 1828 version, and you'd have to go there to get this definition I'm getting ready to give you, because it says, in theology, he cared about theology, In theology, the care and superintendents which God exercises over His creatures. He that acknowledges a creation and denies a providence involves himself in a palpable contradiction. For the same power which caused a thing to exist is necessary to continue its existence.

Some persons admit a general providence, but deny a particular providence. Not considering that a general providence consists of particulars. A belief in divine providence is a source of great consolation to good men. By divine providence is often understood God Himself. And so Mr.

Webster really had a grasp of what providence really was. God's superintending, God governing, God taking care of that which he had created. That which he had created and he saw how what a blessing it was to rest in this theology this doctrine of God's providence And he mentions at the end here, hey, by divine providence is often understood God himself. There are often stones cast at many of our forefathers, not forefathers specifically in the faith, but in the forming of our country. And they often spoke of providence with a capital P.

And some people were, you know, it's a shift away from actually ascribing to God the glory. Maybe in some instances, but I think there were many good men that simply, as Mr. Webster says here, just by saying divine providence has meant God Himself. I think we see that often in the heart of many of our American forefathers, not all. Well the writers then describe the workings of this divine providence.

What is this providence, the superintendence of God over His creation? What's it look like? What is it doing? Well this infinite power this infinite wisdom is doing this it doth uphold direct Dispose and govern. That's what it's doing.

And what is being upheld? What is being directed? What is being disposed and governed? Well it's all creatures, all things, all animate things, all inanimate things, all things living and all things that just simply exist. There's no breath, there's no life in them, they're inanimate, they just lie there like a stone on the ground.

God controls everything. Now what do these four words really mean? What do the writers mean when they talk about uphold, direct, dispose, and govern? Well, again, going back to Webster's dictionary, the 1828 version, to uphold means to support, to sustain, to maintain. That's what God's doing.

Upholding, supporting, sustaining, maintaining. To direct means to regulate, to regulate, to keep it within that bounds, to govern, to actually order and to instruct. Dispose. Dispose means to direct the course of a thing as to what to do or what course to take. To direct the course.

Not just lay the bounds, but to actually direct that course of that object. And then to govern means to control, to control it, to restrain it, and just to flat out exercise authority, just to exercise authority over that thing. And what is this comprehensive nature of God's providence? What does it cover? All things.

In that word all, we don't need to go to Webster's dictionary to understand that all everything nothing missing nothing lacking they said god controls things what about the great things the great things the kings of the earth the rulers of nations yes God's providence rules over the great things, the small things, the insignificant things. What about the small things? Yes, that's part of all things. His providence rules over the affairs of nations, and his providence directs the falling of the leaf driven by the wind. His providence directs the march of the armies of nations and it directs the march of the ants preparing their summer harvest for the cold winter.

Well there are there are two channels in which this providence runs. There are two channels. And it is His most wise and most holy Providence. His providence runs in these channels. Most wise, most holy.

God's providence never veers off the course of what is the wisest and what is the most holy. We have to understand that. God's decree that comes forth and is shown in his providence always takes the course of the wisest and most holy. How often do we think That would have been better doing this or going that route. No.

It would have been neither the wisest nor the most holy. God's providence runs in these channels. And we see here at the end the purpose, the end of this upholding, directing, disposing, and governing. It's to accomplish the purpose for which the object was created, a purpose that reflects the perfection and infallible nature of God's knowledge, as well as the freeness and unchangeableness of the counsel of his own will, as we also studied under the subject of his decrees. It accomplishes the purpose for which the object was created Do you remember the wording in in Romans 9 You know Romans 9 is a very controversial passage, right?

Because it deals with the electing purposes of God and what God has determined for all men. And if you remember, it's talking about the vessels that God makes, that He can make of it what He will. Does not the potter have power over the clay from the same lump to make one vessel for honor and another for dishonor? What if God, wanting to show his wrath and to make his power known endured with much long suffering the vessels of wrath prepared for destruction and that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy which he had prepared beforehand for glory And so the writers here are talking about the flowing out of the decree of God shown in His providence, and He acts according to His providence in what way? To accomplish the purpose for which the object was created.

Everything was created for a purpose. So you could put it simply this way. What God has freely decreed, His providence freely brings to pass. What God has freely decreed, His providence freely brings to pass. Well before leaving this paragraph, the writers of our confession want us to be gripped by the purpose, the purpose of God's acting in providence.

Why does He do this? Why does He do this? Well, to the praise of the glory of His wisdom, His power, His justice, His infinite goodness, and His mercy. It's for the praise of God and the recognition of his marvelous attributes. As Paul comes to the end of Romans chapter 11, having spent a few chapters having to do with the sovereign providence of God we just looked at a portion of it in Romans 9 and Paul as he ends this whole section he comes to the end of Romans 11 And he exclaims in doxological praise, for of Him and through Him and to Him are all things, all things, to whom be glory forever.

Amen. So here the Apostle Paul after a consideration of these heavy subjects of election, the sovereignty of God, the providence of God, His choosing of Israel and His removal of that and setting it on the Gentiles and grafting the Gentiles in. All of that to what end? For of Him and through Him and to him are all things. And what is our response?

To him be the glory. To him be the glory. Well the second paragraph, paragraph two. Although in relation to the foreknowledge and decree of God, the first calls, all things come to pass immutably and infallibly so that there is not anything but falls any by chance or without his providence. Yet by the same providence he ordereth them to fall out according to the nature of second causes either necessarily freely or contingently.

So this paragraph is simply stating that the Providence of God is involved in every affair of life. Everything. All things are coming to pass according to His immutable and infallible will. God is called the first cause, the first cause, and He has to be the first cause because He's decreed everything, right? How can anything else be a first cause if he's the one decreeing it all.

And his providence, remember, what he has freely decreed, his providence freely carries out and so his providence falls right in line to carry out the decrees. God is the first cause of all that comes to pass. It starts as a decree of what shall be and then as Providence makes good on that decree by ordering everything that happens and doing so it tells us, through the use of second causes, acting according to their nature. So God, the first cause, brings about his providences by means of second causes. Now these means will carry out the decree of God in differing ways, And I'm going to try, I'm going to try to describe each particular way given here by a use of a biblical illustration.

And I trust my illustrations will not make things worse, but make things clearer. And I hope I'm grasping a little bit of what the writers of the confession were trying to say and not getting too far off. So bear with me. So it says, some things fall out according to the nature of second causes necessarily, necessarily. Some things happen of necessity.

So, children, do you remember the story of the Israelites leaving Egypt? Do you remember that story of the Israelites leaving Egypt and they they come to the Red Sea and they stop. What's the problem? There's nowhere to go And they turn around and guess what they see behind them? Pharaoh's army.

But what does God do, children? He makes a path in the middle of the Red Sea. How does He do that? The Bible describes walls of water As if the great hands of God he doesn't really have hands children, right? But this is the only way we can understand this because what a man would do with his hands this is if God's doing it and it's as if his hands reach down and just part the waters and it says the children of Israel go across and there are walls of water on either side that's God's providence holding back the waters.

But then what happens? God, as it were, removes those hands of providence. And what happens? Do any of you children remember what happens? What happens?

Tell me. They drown. Now, was God the first cause, providentially, in those waters coming and flooding those soldiers was he the first calls yes what's the second calls how did he use it by what means that his providence act the water. But guess what the water did? It acted out of necessity.

Right? If God removes, as it were, his hands from these walls of water. What's the water going to do? It's going to do what the laws of gravity have said it must do. It's going to go right back into place.

It's not going to just stay there because that's not how... Of necessity it goes back into its place God didn't like push and squeeze and oh dear I've got a no of necessity the second cause did what it does The water went back into place and what happens? Pharaoh's army was drowned, covered in the water. I hope that kind of helps. Of necessity, it just the water went back into place.

God didn't have to come up with a new law. He had already established a law. The nature of water is to go down and level out at a certain elevation. It had to fill the gap that God had created for his children. But secondly, other things that says they say happen freely other things happen freely when Peter was preaching on the day of Pentecost to the Jews gathered there in Jerusalem.

What had just happened not too long before that, just weeks before Christ had been crucified and He's preaching to some of the very ones who were there, probably many of the ones who were in the crowd saying, crucify Him. Crucify Him. His blood be on our hands and on our children's. We'll take the blame. So Peter's preaching to them, and in his preaching he doesn't hold back.

He talks about the crucifixion of Christ, and He mentions two things. One thing He mentions is that Christ being delivered by the predetermined purpose and foreknowledge of God. Okay? So Peter said, hey, I don't have a 1689 confession yet, but God's decrees are true. And God had predetermined the death of his son by his own foreknowledge.

But Peter didn't stop the message there. He didn't stop the application there. He went on to say, you have taken by lawless hands, have crucified and put to death. Do you see what he was saying there the decree of God was that Christ would die God's providence was making sure that happened by second causes. Guess who the second cause was?

These people. Did God press them, squeeze them, force them as if they...God was a ventriloquist and He was making the mouths move, crucify Him, crucify Him. No. They took by lawless No. They took by lawless hands and they crucified the Lord of glory freely, willingly.

It was in their heart. And so sometimes God's providence. He the first calls acts by second calls freely freely these men Crucified Christ freely and Paul made that clear or excuse me Peter made that clear to them and then thirdly thirdly the last, the remaining things happen contingently. They happen contingently. And here I have, I struggle a little bit with this one, with seeking to illustrate it properly and then trying to understand is this what the men truly meant.

Maybe you can come up with better things. But on the night of Passover, we talked about this morning, right children, we talked about the Passover and the angel of death coming. And when I was preparing the talk for tonight, I didn't even really, I hadn't really seen this until I was reading it for communion this morning. But it actually said here, if I can, I'm sure I can find it here again. But it talked about there that what was going to happen was the angel of death would fly up, or the angel of the Lord would fly over with the messenger of death.

And it was the angel of the Lord that was looking and then directing. And there was a contingency in how God's providence was going to respond. Right? He was looking for something, and that something, depending on whether it was there or not, would determine the actings of God's providence. Now, I understand that God's providence was acting in other ways and in other means and moving men's hearts and giving them grace to apply what He has.

There's a lot of other things that we can talk and bring in that are in play, but the bottom line is is he said that if I don't see what applied to the doors, the angel of death, the death would come to the firstborn. What was it? Blood. God's providence, he said, it's contingent. You put the blood on, I'll pass over.

You don't put the blood on. The firstborn is going to die. And so There is a contingency to God's providence, and we see that, the blessings on Mount Ebal, Mount Gerizim, these blessings were contingent on if the people obeyed or if they didn't. And then we see that many, many places in Scripture. Third paragraph, God in His ordinary providence maketh use of means, yet – big word, yet – is free to work without, above, and against these means at his pleasure.

So God in His ordinary providence makes use of these means, these second causes. But this paragraph simply declares that the ordinary paths of providence are found within the confines of these means or second causes, but the providence of God is not bound by them. His providence isn't bound by these second causes. Even though it chooses to use these second causes in such a manner that may be described as ordinary This this is this is usually what happens God uses the second causes this second causes and he does that so often it's called ordinary this is this is the way God typically does it but yet that big three-letter three-letter word but it's big yet He's not bound by the use of the second causes, right? God's providence may be pleased to operate without the use of means, above the use of means, or even against the ordinary use of means.

This reality makes way for the exercise of our faith in the miracles recorded in Scripture. When we recorded in Scripture. When we see Christ taking five loaves of bread and two fish and feeding the multitudes, What second means did he use? He didn't. He didn't use a second means.

He simply made it keep going. They broke the bread they served the fish and it kept going What second means were used in turning water into wine None Fill it up with water and then when they drew it out and went to take the glass to the man who was leading the festivities, it was wine. God's providence can act outside of the ordinary second causes. This should increase our hope in him as well as fuel the intensity and expectation of our prayers. When we can't see a way out, there's not a second cause in sight.

Pray because God's not bound by the second causes he's not bound by them and then the fourth paragraph finally the Almighty power unsearchable wisdom and infinite goodness of God so far manifest themselves in His providence that His determinate counsel extendeth itself even to the first fall and to all other sinful actions both of angels and men and that not by a bare permission which also he most wisely and powerfully boundeth and otherwise order thing govern governeth in a manifold dispensation to his most holy ends yet so as the sinfulness of their acts proceedeth only from the creatures and not from God who being most holy and righteous neither is nor can be the author or approver of sin." Our natural inclination, man's natural inclination when confronted with the doctrine of the providence of God is to immediately think of all the incidents of history that would seem to give evidence of falling outside of this divine providence. After all, certainly the fall of Adam into sin was not carried out by the providence of God. Certainly God never decreed the rebellion of Lucifer. How unthinkable to contemplate the sinful actions of men and angels as occurrences found within the realm, anywhere within the realm of the acting providence of God.

But even though the natural inclination of the thoughts of unregenerate man refuse to accept it and even though the redeemed heart and mind still find it difficult to grasp The fact is that all of these things, all of these things, the first fall as well as all the other sinful actions of men come to pass as a result of the providence of God carrying out his will carrying out his decree and here again the confession seeks to go out of our understanding seeks to get out of our understanding by declaring that God's decree and God's providence do not violate the will of the creature or make God the author or approver of sin. I want to make that crystal clear. Okay? They're not backing down from the fact that God's hand of providence oversees, governs, sustains, keeps the channel, controls even the sinful actions of men, but don't dare for one second think that God's the author or approver of such sin. And there again the wires in my mind They blow.

I don't understand it. I can't even explain it completely to you, but it's true. It's true. God, His providence, rule over all things that He has created. So what does this mean for us?

What profit is this doctrine of providence to us? Well, in his commentary on the Confession, Sam Waldron offers the following. He says understanding that God controls the world through means should keep us from three things. First, a miserable anxiety. You ever heard of that word before?

A miserable anxiety and complaining about life. He says everything is under the control of the living God. If you believe that, it will keep you from an anxiety and complaining which will make your life miserable. That's the first thing the providence of God should keep us from. But secondly, it should keep us from a paralyzing fatalism.

A paralyzing fatalism. What difference does the use of means make? All the difference in the world because God has ordained the means. So it's so easy for us to say, what difference does it make? The means, all the difference in the world because God has ordained those means.

Number three, Mr. Waldron says, it should keep us from a ruinous presumption. A ruinous presumption. Do not presume that you will see the results in the outcome without using the means. Do not expect that God will save your loved ones unless you pray for them Do not expect to be safe unless you take precautions The means to salvation is repentance and faith.

The means to profit is labor. The way to heaven is holiness and walking the narrow way. So God's providence is important to us, and it can keep us from these very things, a miserable anxiety and complaining about life, a paralyzing fatalism, and a ruinous presumption. And So we need to ask for faith and the right understanding of this providence of God and that we would find comfort in this. And yet we would continue to seek these means, these second causes that God uses to bring about His providence.

Well, let's look to Him in prayer. Oh God, we thank You that You are the Creator of all things. And as the Creator, You govern all things. You dispose of all things. You control all things.

They're all in your hand to do what you have created them to do in all to your glory. Lord, help us to walk out of here, though we may not better be able to grasp the truth and the reality of this for it's so far above us yet oh Lord may we rest in it knowing that you have stated it to be so in Your Word, and give us grace to find that sweet comfort in it, knowing that You control all things, and not only that You control all things, but You control them for the good of Your people and for your glory. In Christ's name we pray, amen.