Main Idea:

Evil plans will not prevail against the providential purposes of the Lord.

1. An Evil Plot to Thwart God’s Plan (vv. 12-15)

2. Divine Providence & His Fatherly Hand (vv. 16-35)

The Heidelberg Catechism - 1563

“Providence is the almighty and ever present power of God by which he upholds, as with his hand, heaven and earth and all creatures, and so rules them that leaf and blade, rain and drought, fruitful and lean years, food and drink, health and sickness, prosperity and poverty—all things, in fact, come to us not by chance but from his fatherly hand.”

2. Divine Providence & His Fatherly Hand (vv. 16-35)

Providence over ordinary, seemingly random events

Providence carried out through human agency

Response:

1. Repent - you do not live under God’s “Fatherly hand” if you have not been reconciled through Christ.

Jn. 3:36 “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.”

2. Resolve

To Trust Completely in the One who upholds your life

To Live Faithfully (obediently). God’s providential work in our lives must never lead us to passivity

To Walk Humbly. God’s providential hand over our lives should make us humble