Providences Quotes & Sayings

All providences are doors to trial. Men may be drowned in seas of prosperity as well as in rivers of affliction. — Charles Haddon Spurgeon

Wonder-Working Providences of Sion's Saviour in New England, — Peter Marshall

[Providences] often puzzle and entangle our thoughts, but bring them to the Word, and your duty will be quickly manifested. "Until I went into the sanctuary of God, then understood I their end" (Ps. 73:17). And not only their end, but his own duty, to be quiet in an afflicted condition and not envy their prosperity. — John Flavel

Let us consider and marvel that ever this great and blessed God should be so much concerned, as you have heard He is in all His providences, about such vile, despicable worms as we are! He does not need us, but is perfectly blessed and happy in Himself without us. We can add nothing to Him. — John Flavel

Providences in themselves are not a perfect guide. They often puzzle and entangle our thoughts; but bring them to the Word, and your duty will be quickly manifested. — John Flavel

Beautiful blessings sometimes come wrapped in ugly providences. — Matshona Dhliwayo

Any peace, rest and quiet we have is from this alone. Who would be safe if wicked men had power to perform all the sin they conceive? We are indebted to providence for the preservation of our lives, our families, and everything we hold dear. May we not say at times, with the psalmist, 'My soul is among lions(psa.57:4)?How could we live if God did not deal with them (psa. 58:60)? Some he cuts off and destroys, some he deprives of power, some he robs he diverts in other ways. We must, with the psalmist, praise the Lord for his countless wise providences (psa.104:24). In the Lords right ways, the just are made to walk, but the transgressors fall (Hos. 14:9).

Indwelling Sin in Believers (pg118) — John Owen

How mercifully can our Creator treat His creatures, even in those conditions in which they seemed to be overwhelmed in destruction! How can He sweeten the bitterest providences, and give us cause to praise Him for dungeons and prisons! What a table was here spread for me in a wilderness where I saw nothing at first but to perish for hunger! — Daniel Defoe

There is this trouble about special providences namely, there is so often a doubt as to which party was intended to be the beneficiary. In the case of the children, the bears, and the prophet, the bears got more real satisfaction out of the episode than the prophet did, because they got the children. — Mark Twain

Matthew Henry says that to walk with God is "to set God always before us, and to act as those that are always under his eye. It is to live a life of communion with God both in ordinances and providences. It is to make God's word our rule and his glory our end in all our actions."5 — Jerry Bridges

Do I learn through dark providences, or simply seem relieved when they are over? — Sinclair B. Ferguson

You may look upon some providences once and again, and see little or nothing in them, but look "seven times," that is, meditate often upon them, and you will see their increasing glory, like that increasing cloud (1 Kings 18:44). — John Flavel

Increase Mather, President of Harvard University, in his treatise on Remarkable Providences, insists that the smell of herbs alarms the Devil and that medicine expels him. Such beliefs have probably even now not wholly disappeared from among us. — James Henry Breasted

Every gazette brings accounts of the untutored freaks of the wind,
shipwrecks and hurricanes which the mariner and planter acceptas special or general providences; but they touch our consciences, they remind us of our sins. Another deluge would disgrace mankind. — Henry David Thoreau

To the dim and bewildered vision of humanity, God's care is more evident in some instances than in others; and upon such instances men seize, and call them providences. It is well that they can; but it would be gloriously better if they could believe that the whole matter is one grand providence. — George MacDonald

The providences of God may be observed to conduce to our holiness, not only by preventing sin, that we may not fall into it; but also by purging our sins when we are fallen into them. 'By this therefore shall the iniquity of Jacob be purged; and this is all the fruit to take away his sin' (Isaiah 27:9). — John Flavel

Guilty consciences are apt to take good providences in a bad sense, — Matthew Henry

O happy providences, however smart, that make the soul for ever afraid of sin! — John Flavel

Hannah Whitehall Smith, the author of The Christian's Secret of a Happy Life, said, "God disciplines the soul by inward exercises and outward providences." What she means is that God will put into our hearts the right thing to do in every situation, but if we choose not to do it, then He will allow our circumstances to become our teacher. — Joyce Meyer

I believe not only in "special providences," but in the whole universe as one infinite complexity of "special providences. — Charles Kingsley

All the dark, intricate, puzzling providences at which we were sometimes so offended ... we shall [one day] see to be to us, as the difficult passage through the wilderness was to Israel, "the right way to the city of habitation". — John Flavel

In all God's providences, it is good to compare His word and His works together; for we shall find a beautiful harmony between them, and that they mutually illustrate each other. — Matthew Henry

If our rest was here, most of God's providences must be useless. Should God lose the glory of his church's miraculous deliverances, and of the fall of his enemies, that men may have their happiness here? — Richard Baxter

When you pray regularly, you never know when God will show up or speak up. Today could be the day. When you live in prayer mode, you live with holy anticipation. You know that coincidences are providences. Any moment can turn into a holy moment. God can invade the reality of your life at three o'clock one afternoon and change everything. — Mark Batterson

Some providences, like Hebrew letters, must be read backwards. — John Flavel

I do not know all of the providences of the Lord, but I do know that he permits false doctrine to be taught in and out of the Church and that such teaching is part of the sifting process of mortality — Bruce R. McConkie

The providences of God to his saints here, while on this low bottom of earth, are mixed and parti-coloured, as was signified by the 'speckled' horses, Zech. 1:8, in — William Gurnall

God often lays the sum of His amazing providences in very dismal afflictions; as the limner first puts on the dusky colors, on which he intends to draw the portraiture of some illustrious beauty. — Stephen Charnock

His providences, if duly observed, promote holiness by stopping up our way to sin. O, if men would but note the designs of God in his preventive providences, how useful would it be to keep them upright and holy in their ways! For why is it that the Lord so often hedges up our way with thorns, as it is in Hosea ii. 6, but that we should not find our paths to sin? — John Flavel

Look back, believer: think of your doubting God when he has been so faithful to you
think of your foolish outcry of "Not so, my Father," when he crossed his hands in affliction to give you the larger blessing; think of the many times when you have read his providences in the dark, misinterpreted his dispensations, and groaned out, "All these things are against me," when they are all working together for your good! Think how often you have chosen sin because of its pleasure, when indeed, that pleasure was a root of bitterness to you! — Charles Haddon Spurgeon

It was John Flavel who said to his congregation in England, some three hundred years ago, "Some providences of God, like Hebrew letters, are best understood backwards. — Steve Farrar