Introduction
God visits, touches, communicates, controls, and intervenes, coming before and between people and their needs. His continuous plan demonstrated by the his intervention, predestination, predetermination, and direction of His Will in our life is a clear indication of His Divine Providence. As clear as Divine Providence is to us, there are still concepts that arise in Satan's attempt to snatch God's Glory. These counterfeit principles creep in many ways and often look amazingly close to the principles of God.
Foundation Scripture:
Jeremiah 29:11
Scripture Teaching: 2 Peter 3:8-10
Key Verses: 2 Peter 3:8
8 But you must not forget, dear friends, that a day is like a thousand years to the Lord, and a thousand years is like a day. 9 The Lord isn’t really being slow about his promise to return, as some people think. No, he is being patient for your sake. He does not want anyone to perish, so he is giving more time for everyone to repent.
God’s plan and timing are divine (3:8). Sovereignty, not slowness, is the issue. Appealing to the teaching of Psalms90:4 For you, a thousand years are as yesterday!
Peter pointed out that what was regarded as a long time to people was like a mere day in God’s reckoning. God is not bound by earthly time. The phrase “as some people think” (3:9) is intended as a slur against the opponents who say that delay functions as a prime argument against providential judgment. But, understood correctly, the present lack of God’s full judgment is actually a proof for God’s providence. God’s so-called slowness is actually providing time to repent based on God’s benevolent character. He is patient, not slow. That patience is clearly seen in God’s covenant with Noah. Humans would continue to be as sinful as ever (Genesis 8:21), but God bound himself to withholding his full judgment so that he could show grace in Christ.
Counterfeit Providences:
FATE
Also called Kismet, Karma, or Chance rules the lives of many. Countless numbers of people have believed themselves to be trapped by a sometimes fickle and always foreboding fate. “As fate would have it,” they say.
LUCK
Optimists speak of “fortune,” or less solemnly of “luck.” Luck is also sometimes called good fortune. People refer to themselves as lucky or even often used the term fortunate or that they have a charmed life.
SERENDIPITY
This is the term used for seemingly coincidental, unintentional discoveries of good things along the way in life. It fails to acknowledge God’s part in the discovery and sometimes sidesteps gratitude for God's orchestration of the gift.
HISTORY
There is a current trend towards encouraging people to think that their future is dictated or even set up by their past. This way of thinking has been a new day model of the concept of the Marxist propagandists that championed their cause by saying, “History is on our side.” They were appealing to a supposed inevitability of future events that would lead to a Communistic world. “History” in such a statement appears to have taken on a divine dimension. Likewise, when American leaders have affirmed a “manifest destiny” for the United States to be the superior power in the Western hemisphere or in the world at large, it’s the same kind of reasoning.
PROGRESS
The development of science and technology, education and social evolution, and territorial conquests have made some people believe in progress as something more than what is seen. Until the two world wars, there was the illusion of a relentless momentum pushing upward and onward forever.
NATURE
Men like Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau of nineteenth-century New England attributed to nature the gifts of providence.
NATURAL SELECTION AND THE SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST
Charles Darwin’s classic on biological evolution, Origin of Species, appeared in 1859. It popularized two relatively new theories. For millions of people, the mysterious decisions behind “natural selection” intrigued the thoughtful more than the notion of God’s providence. And the idea that those who are most fit survive best seems to make providence altogether unnecessary.
These counterfeit views compete with the idea of God’s providence. They cannot all be true. Nor can they satisfy the inquirer whose personhood calls insistently for a personal providence that reflects a knowledge of his individual needs and uniqueness. Only the Christian doctrine of providence provides that.
What does the Word Say of God's PROVIDENCE
Providence is basically God’s provision for the needs of people. The classic statement is found in Abraham’s confession of faith in his life’s most difficult test. He was under the duress of God’s command to provide something he could not afford-his son in sacrifice. He struggled with the dilemma of losing his son or losing God’s friendship. In answer to Isaac’s question about a sacrifice for God, Abraham exclaimed, “God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son” (Genesis 22:8, NIV). The word “providence” means literally “to see before,” and therefore by implication to do something about the situation. In this case, there was already upon Mount Moriah a suitable sacrifice, “a ram, caught in a thicket by his horns” (Genesis 22:13 ).
For the unbeliever, an analysis of the situation would conclude that through an ordinary process an animal had become entangled in dense underbrush, and coincidentally Abraham and Isaac happened to arrive on the scene. But to believing Abraham, who was led for three days toward that one point in time and space in desperate need of a divine provision, it was altogether clear to him that God, by whatever process, had stationed the ram at the place of sacrifice for his use. “Provision” and “providence” are coordinately related to their verbal root, “provide,” and are essentially and etymologically the same. However, they are theologically distinguished in that providence has come to mean God’s foresight of our need.
The great text on providence in the New Testament is also set in a context of sacrifice pleasing to God. Paul had reason to commend the Philippians’ sacrificial support of his missionary work. To them he stated his unbounded confidence in the providential care of God: “This same God who takes care of me will supply all your needs from his glorious riches, which have been given to us in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:19). The sacrifice of Christ Jesus for us confirms the doctrine of providence with a great certainty. What God initially asked of Abraham but did not ultimately require (the sacrifice of his son), he required of himself two millennia later. It is God’s nature to supply, to foresee human need, and to provide.
Immediately following his reassuring words to the Philippians about the treasury of providence (“his riches in glory”-Philippians 4:19), the apostle Paul wrote a doxology to God “our Father” (Philippians 4:20). Providence is appropriately pictured in the fatherhood of God. His fatherhood is the attribute, and providence is the act that expresses it. Good fathers provide and guide. Fathers construct conditions of opportunity for children without crowding their freedom. They exercise authority and control in a context of caring. Providence, therefore, as an activity of God, flows naturally from God’s fatherly nature.
Being secure in the fact that God is sovereign and Divine Providence is the way that He cares for us leads us to understand that we are never in the grip of counterfeit providences (fortune, chance, luck, fate). Everything that happens to us is carefully thought out, divinely planned. Each and every event comes is a new opportunity for success in which we will trust, obey, and rejoice in the God of our salvation, knowing that it all is for our spiritual and eternal good (Rom. 8:28).
Planning Produces Progress
Progress stimulates and inspires Practice
Practice will produce Perfection
Perfection requires Patience
Patience increases the probability for Purposeful Action
Purposeful Action invokes Divine Providence