Does God Control Everything? (Crucial Questions)

by R.C. Sproul

We learn truth from science. We get good feelings from religion.

Modern man basically has no concept of providence.

I am speculating here, but I wonder whether Jesus wrote out some of the secret sins those men were zealous to keep locked away. Perhaps He wrote “adultery,” and one of the men who was unfaithful to his wife read it and crept away. Perhaps he wrote “tax evasion,” and one of the Pharisees who had failed to render unto Caesar decided to head for home.

I believe the writer of that song understood what Jesus was saying—that God knows every time any tiny bird falls to the ground. God does not overlook even the slightest detail in the universe. Rather, He governs the universe in total awareness of everything that is happening within it.

“The grass is wet because the rain fell,” and he looks no further for a higher, ultimate cause. Twenty-first-century people seem to think we can get along just fine with secondary causes and give no thought to the primary cause.

ourselves. If any atheist would think seriously and logically about the concept of being for five minutes, it would be the end of his atheism.

We do not usually hear about a God who commands obedience, who asserts His authority over the universe and insists we bow down to His anointed Messiah.

At this time, Israel was led by Eli, a priest and judge. He was a godly man who had served the people for decades, but he had one serious defect. He had two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, who also were priests, but they did not share Eli’s godliness, and they committed all kinds of desecration of their sacred vocation. However, Eli never disciplined them.

If you don’t believe that God ordains everything that comes to pass, you don’t believe in God.”

Did all that happen by chance? No, the cows were guided by the invisible hand of the God of providence. Thus, the Philistines knew that that same hand had afflicted them.

So, does God ordain evil? There is only one biblical answer to that question: yes. If God did not ordain evil, there would be no evil, because God is sovereign.