He gives the unspeakable privilege of using me, but he does not need me.

He can bring his will to pass without me and without you.

How do things in the words of the Westminster Confession of Faith come to pass? Does God use means?

And if he does, does he need to? That's what R.C. Sprawl will address today on renewing your mind

as we continue our study of God's providence as summarized in the Westminster Confession.

As R.C. Sprole just mentioned,

God does not need us to bring about his will.

And remembering this helps keep us humble

and should fill us with gratitude

for how he so often does use us in incredible ways,

whether bringing a brother or sister comfort

or sharing the good news of the gospel with an unbeliever.

Well, here's Dr. Sparroll to continue this week's study on Providence.

We're going to continue now with our study of the Westminster Confession of Faith,

and we've already begun our study of Chapter 5 on the Providence of God. And in our last session, we looked at

Section 1 by way of introduction to this concept. And so now we're going to proceed by looking

first at Section 2. Section 2 reads as follows, although in relation to the foreknowledge and decree of God, the first cause,

all things come to pass immutably and infallibly, yet by the same providence, he ordered them to fall out according to the nature of second causes,

either necessarily, freely, or contingently. Now, if you recall in the opening chapters of the

confession, when we looked at the attributes of God, we already

encountered this distinction between God as the first cause and the idea of secondary causes,

particularly in chapter three, which treated the eternal decrees of God. We remember that

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