PREDESTINATION AND PROVIDENCE

    In old eternity, the Lord decreed the salvation of His chosen people through the obedience unto death of His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.  To bring about this salvation, the Lord predestinated all that shall ever be and in providence is carrying out His foreordained will.  While predestination has to do with the people of God (see Romans 8:29-30; Ephesians 1:5, 11), it necessarily includes the origin, existence and end of everything.  

Providence is God directing all things to the end He has determined in order to accomplish that which He ordained for His people.  Predestination has to do with the infinitely wise counsel and purpose of God while providence has to do with His inexhaustible power and irresistible work in fulfilling that purpose.  You may be sure that where there is the decreed will of God (predestination) there shall be divine activity to perform that will (providence).  What the Lord has predestinated, His providence shall accomplish.  Predestination is, therefore, the sovereign, eternal, unchanging and unchangeable purpose of the triune God by which He designed and ordained all that shall ever come to pass in order to save a people from their sins and bring them to stand righteous before Him in Christ Jesus, “to the praise of the glory of His grace” (Ephesians 1:6).  

Providence is God executing all He has designed and ordained.  Those who imagine God would create all things and not have a predestinated purpose for everything, charge Him with foolishness and lack of forethought.  Those who think that God created all things, but cannot control all that He has made and direct them to the end that He has determined, malign His power and wisdom to bring about His own desires.                                                                                            

 

-preacher Jim Byrd

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