What Is Providence?

Renewing Your Mind

Ligonier Ministries

Religion & Spirituality, Reformed, Study, Jesus, Preaching, Christianity, Scripture, Spirit, Bible, Holy, Theology, Christian, God, Teaching

4.8 • 4.9K Ratings

🗓️ 24 November 2025

⏱️ 26 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Nothing happens randomly or by chance. Every atom in the universe is carefully orchestrated by the invisible hand of God. Today, R.C. Sproul introduces the awe-inspiring and comforting doctrine of divine providence.

Request R.C. Sproul's providence resource bundle with your gift of any amount: two booklets (Does God Control Everything?, What Does It Mean That God Is Sovereign?), two digital teaching series (Providence: God in Control, The Providence of God), and a digital study guide (The Providence of God): https://gift.renewingyourmind.org/4412/offer

Live outside the U.S. and Canada? With your donation, request the providence resource bundle with two ebooks, two digital teaching series, and a digital study guide: https://www.renewingyourmind.org/global

Meet Today's Teacher:

R.C. Sproul (1939–2017) was founder of Ligonier Ministries, first minister of preaching and teaching at Saint Andrew's Chapel, first president of Reformation Bible College, and executive editor of Tabletalk magazine.

Meet the Host:

Nathan W. Bingham is vice president of media for Ligonier Ministries, executive producer and host of Renewing Your Mind, and host of the Ask Ligonier podcast.

Renewing Your Mind is a donor-supported outreach of Ligonier Ministries. Explore all of our podcasts: https://www.ligonier.org/podcasts

Transcript

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0:00.0	We have focused so intently on the proximate activity that's directly in our purview that, for the most part, we have ignored or denied the overarching causal power behind all of life, so that modern man has no concept of providence.
0:23.6	The technological advances we have seen in recent years, and are seeing right before our eyes,
0:35.6	those things that make our lives so much easier,
0:38.9	they tend to make us think that we're in control.
0:41.7	But every now and then, something happens, something unforeseen, and we realize we're not in control.
0:49.6	Today on Renewing Your Mind, we begin several days in R.C. Sproles series on the Providence of God.
0:56.2	As our listeners in the United States approach the annual Thanksgiving holiday,
1:00.9	it's important to remember the God of Providence, for it is he who is in control,
1:06.8	and it is to him that we must ultimately give thanks.
1:10.6	To help you study Providence further, we're also offering two series and two books by Dr. Sprawl on this topic,
1:17.6	and you can learn more and how you can request this resource bundle at Renewing Your Mind.org.
1:24.6	Well, here's Dr. Sprawl to begin our study.
1:28.3	At lunchtime today, I spent some time looking at one of the news programs and they flashed
1:36.3	an advertisement on the screen advertising a series of books from Time Life Company.
1:52.3	And one of the books had to do with glimpses of problems of life in the past. And the advertisement went on to say, read this particular book that tells us what it was like to be sick a hundred years ago.
2:03.6	That caught my attention because we as 20th century people are so bound to our own time frame.
2:13.6	And do you ever think about how people lived their daily lives in previous ages, in previous
2:21.3	generations?
2:22.3	My mind thinks about that quite frequently because I have a habit of reading books that were
2:28.3	written by people who lived, in many cases, long before the 20th century.
2:33.7	I particularly like to read the authors of the 16th century before the 20th century. I particularly like to read the authors of
2:35.9	the 16th century, the 17th century, and the 18th century. And what I notice in their writings,
	...

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