“…I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like Me, declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things that are not yet done, saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, and I will do all My pleasure’” Isaiah 46.10
A very limited view of God’s providence is the idea that God only intervenes in the affairs of this world on an “intermittent” basis. Many in their thinking, including many professing Christians, are only willing to ascribe God’s providential work with the good and spectacular events of life. Thus, if some event happens which say allows one’s plans to work out unusually well, one can be heard to say, “That was providential!”
The implication is that we chiefly operate on our own, but God comes along from time to time to remarkably surprise us with something good, or to make occasional noticeable course corrections in our lives. And yet we read, “For there is not a word on my tongue, but behold, O Lord, You know it altogether… In Your book they all were written, the days fashioned for me, when as yet there were none of them”, “Are not two sparrows sold for a copper coin? And not one of them falls to the ground apart from your Father’s will. The very hairs of your head are all numbered”, and “For in Him we live and move and have our being” (Psalm 139.4,16; Matt 10.29-30; Acts 17.28). What can these verses mean if they don’t express God’s full and absolute providential determination, will, and rule in all things from the greatest to the smallest detail in space and time?
It is a particular foolish fancy of some to contemplate questions like whether there is a sound in the forest when a tree falls if a person is not present. Indeed, how arrogant and profoundly ridiculous that is when one finally understands that God is present everywhere and actively working out His purposes with every aspect of His creation, for His glory – even the glorious sound of a tree falling in a remote part of the world where no man is present!
Among the historical accounts of the Old Testament, the little book of Ruth is remarkable in that there are no miraculous burning bushes or parting seas. Instead, it is the story of very ordinary people and very ordinary and unspectacular events. Yet they are woven together by God into an extraordinary outcome, in that Boaz, Ruth and Obed are wonderfully placed into the very mainstream of God’s sovereign progressive plan, progressively revealed and brought to pass.
We see Ruth’s poor and widowed mother-in-law Naomi humbly going to Bethlehem, but when greeted replying with, “Do Not call me Naomi; call me Bitter”, and yet, in the midst of her suffering, giving what is in fact a statement of faith by declaring, “The Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me. I went out full, and the Lord has brought me home again empty. Why do you call me Naomi, since the Lord has testified against me, and the Almighty has afflicted me?” (Ruth 1.20-21). Naomi did not like her circumstances, but she saw God’s almighty hand in bringing them to pass. Perhaps she even recognized God’s discipline for she and her family originally went to Moab instead of humbly relying upon God in the land of promise. Thus, the commonplace events of death and famine were the very means that God used to bring Naomi and Ruth to Bethlehem for His purposes and their good, and Naomi bore testament to it.
Similarly, we read in regards to Ruth that, “her hap was to light on the portion of the field belonging unto Boaz (ASV)” (vs. 2.3). This is exactly where God would have her to be, and yet God accomplished it in a mundane and seemingly incidental way. The puritan Matthew Henry wrote regarding this passage, “Many a great affair is brought about by a little turn, which seemed fortuitous to us, but was directed by Providence with design”.
God controls even the unpredictable toss of the lot for His purposes as was evidenced with Jonah and Saul’s son Jonathan (Jonah 1.7; 1 Sam. 14.42). Likewise, the random arrow among many in a battle was divinely directed such that it “struck the king of Israel between the joints of his armor” (1 Kings 22.34), and so Ahab was judged on schedule, in spite of his efforts to avoid this prophesied event by disguising himself from the enemy.
Take heart, there is absolutely nothing out of God’s providential oversight and rule. And all that He ordains and sovereignly brings to pass is for the good of His blood-bought people and for His glory (Rom 8.28-29).
A very limited view of God’s providence is the idea that God only intervenes in the affairs of this world on an “intermittent” basis. Many in their thinking, including many professing Christians, are only willing to ascribe God’s providential work with the good and spectacular events of life. Thus, if some event happens which say allows one’s plans to work out unusually well, one can be heard to say, “That was providential!”
The implication is that we chiefly operate on our own, but God comes along from time to time to remarkably surprise us with something good, or to make occasional noticeable course corrections in our lives. And yet we read, “For there is not a word on my tongue, but behold, O Lord, You know it altogether… In Your book they all were written, the days fashioned for me, when as yet there were none of them”, “Are not two sparrows sold for a copper coin? And not one of them falls to the ground apart from your Father’s will. The very hairs of your head are all numbered”, and “For in Him we live and move and have our being” (Psalm 139.4,16; Matt 10.29-30; Acts 17.28). What can these verses mean if they don’t express God’s full and absolute providential determination, will, and rule in all things from the greatest to the smallest detail in space and time?
It is a particular foolish fancy of some to contemplate questions like whether there is a sound in the forest when a tree falls if a person is not present. Indeed, how arrogant and profoundly ridiculous that is when one finally understands that God is present everywhere and actively working out His purposes with every aspect of His creation, for His glory – even the glorious sound of a tree falling in a remote part of the world where no man is present!
Among the historical accounts of the Old Testament, the little book of Ruth is remarkable in that there are no miraculous burning bushes or parting seas. Instead, it is the story of very ordinary people and very ordinary and unspectacular events. Yet they are woven together by God into an extraordinary outcome, in that Boaz, Ruth and Obed are wonderfully placed into the very mainstream of God’s sovereign progressive plan, progressively revealed and brought to pass.
We see Ruth’s poor and widowed mother-in-law Naomi humbly going to Bethlehem, but when greeted replying with, “Do Not call me Naomi; call me Bitter”, and yet, in the midst of her suffering, giving what is in fact a statement of faith by declaring, “The Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me. I went out full, and the Lord has brought me home again empty. Why do you call me Naomi, since the Lord has testified against me, and the Almighty has afflicted me?” (Ruth 1.20-21). Naomi did not like her circumstances, but she saw God’s almighty hand in bringing them to pass. Perhaps she even recognized God’s discipline for she and her family originally went to Moab instead of humbly relying upon God in the land of promise. Thus, the commonplace events of death and famine were the very means that God used to bring Naomi and Ruth to Bethlehem for His purposes and their good, and Naomi bore testament to it.
Similarly, we read in regards to Ruth that, “her hap was to light on the portion of the field belonging unto Boaz (ASV)” (vs. 2.3). This is exactly where God would have her to be, and yet God accomplished it in a mundane and seemingly incidental way. The puritan Matthew Henry wrote regarding this passage, “Many a great affair is brought about by a little turn, which seemed fortuitous to us, but was directed by Providence with design”.
God controls even the unpredictable toss of the lot for His purposes as was evidenced with Jonah and Saul’s son Jonathan (Jonah 1.7; 1 Sam. 14.42). Likewise, the random arrow among many in a battle was divinely directed such that it “struck the king of Israel between the joints of his armor” (1 Kings 22.34), and so Ahab was judged on schedule, in spite of his efforts to avoid this prophesied event by disguising himself from the enemy.
Take heart, there is absolutely nothing out of God’s providential oversight and rule. And all that He ordains and sovereignly brings to pass is for the good of His blood-bought people and for His glory (Rom 8.28-29).