God's Mysterious Ways

Embracing God's Providence in Esther

Jane Roach

• Publisher: P Publishing
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9781629952246
• eBook ISBN: 9781629952253
• Topic: Teologia e religione
• Subtopic: Studi biblici

Do you want to experience God's providence at work in your life? Jane's ten-lesson devotional commentary on Esther helps you achieve gratitude, peace, and joy through application questions and testimonies.

LESSON 1

Embracing God’s Providence

For from him [God] and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen. (Romans 11:36)

Texts

Genesis 1:1; Psalms 104:24–30; 139:16; Proverbs 21:1; and others related to God’s providence.

Truth

God infallibly and sovereignly works to accomplish his plan.

Hymn: “Immortal, Invisible, God Only Wise”

Immortal, invisible, God only wise,

In light inaccessible hid from our eyes,

Most blessed, most glorious, the Ancient of Days,

Almighty, victorious, thy great name we praise.

Unresting, unhasting and silent as light,

Nor wanting, nor wasting, thou rulest in might;

Thy justice like mountains high soaring above

Thy clouds which are fountains of goodness and love.

To all, life thou givest, to both great and small,

In all life thou livest, the true life of all;

We blossom and flourish as leaves on the tree,

And wither and perish, but naught changeth thee.

Great Father of glory, pure Father of light,

Thine angels adore thee, all veiling their sight;

All praise we would render; O help us to see

’Tis only the splendor of light hideth thee!

—WALTER CHALMERS SMITH, 1867

Opening Prayer

O God, the immortal, invisible, and only wise God. You are hidden from my eyes and yet you have opened them to see your hand in providing for my practical needs, my longing for meaning, and my hope for the future, both temporal and eternal. You turn darkness into light and make rough places smooth. Please open my eyes to see your providence in my life. Teach me what your providence is, and enable me to embrace it in my life, my family and friends, my church, my nation, and the world. Great Father of glory, pure Father of light, help me see that only the splendor of light hides you from me. For your glory. Amen.

Questions for Study and Discussion

Question 11 of the The Westminster Shorter Catechism asks, “What are God’s works of providence?” The answer states, “God’s works of providence are, his most holy, wise, and powerful preserving and governing all his creatures, and all their actions.”

God’s Providence in Creation

READ GENESIS 1:1

1. Describe God’s relation to creation.
   
   
2. How would you explain God’s purposes in creating the heavens and earth?
   
   
3. What is the definition of “providence”?

God’s Providential Care of His Creation

READ PSALM 104:24–30

4. How are creation and providence related?

God’s Providence over All of Life

READ PSALM 139:16 AND PROVERBS 21:1

5. What do these verses reveal about God’s providence in life and death?
   
   
6. What part does faith play in embracing God’s providence?
   
   
7. How does God’s providence show his personal care for his people? Give an example from your own life, if possible.
   
   
8. Does God providentially ordain evil? Explain your answer using any portion of Scripture.
   
   
9. What are some practical implications of believing in God’s providence?
   
   
10. How does God’s providence show you how to respond when things go poorly?

Commentary

I love it when my grandchildren come running and cling to me. That is what “embrace” means, is it not? You cling to what you know and love. Our opening prayer began, “O God.” He is the reason we study the Bible. We study that we may know him as he has revealed himself in his Word. Because we will never know him fully, for he is infinite, we have a lifelong purpose—to strive to learn all we can about God. As we begin this study, we will seek to understand God’s providence that we may then be able to recognize and embrace it both in the book of Esther and our own lives. We begin with God himself, the only true God.

Who God Is

He Created the World to Reveal His Glory

God alone is uncreated; he existed before matter, time, and space. God made the world by his powerful word (Psalm 33:6). All that he made exists by him, through him, and for him (Romans 11:36). We understand that our galaxy is but one of many; only God knows how many. What wisdom, what power our Creator has! All that God created is his and subject to him, the only self-existent being (Job 38:1–42:6). He is sovereign, highest in rank and authority. That is what it means to be God.

Why did he create the physical realm? The main reason is that God delights in revealing his perfect nature. Both angelic and human beings observe aspects of his character, such as his wisdom, eternal power, and divine nature in his creation (Romans 1:20). As they respond with reverence and awe, believing there is a Creator who fashioned the world out of nothing, God is glorified. God also beholds himself in his creation and is glorified.

The Creator Is Also the Sustainer of All

God did not create and then leave the world to its own ways. God designed each and every part of it—from the splendid galaxies to the minute nanoplankton—to fit perfectly into his creation, and he sustains them by his knowledge and power.

From spring until early summer, newborn fawns are dropped in our yard, where we enjoy watching them. By God’s design, they have no scent until they are able to run fast enough to escape predators. If the doe stays with the fawn, her scent will attract the predators, so she leaves it alone. She returns periodically to nurse and clean it after scouting the area for danger. The fawn does not move until she signals it is safe. How she signals is not clear to me, but it seems to be a flick of her tail or a special sound. This is just one animal perfectly designed for its part in God’s earth. Jesus said, “Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. . . . Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these” (Matthew 6:26, 28–29). God receives glory as he sustains what he created.

The Apex of God’s Creation Is Humanity

God created man and woman in his image so they could reflect his glory back to him. He sovereignly sets his affection on people according to his purposes and will. He guarantees that his purposes for each person and for all people will come to pass. Derek Thomas says, “Providence suggests God’s care of the world, both his supervision of all events and circumstances and his provision for all of our needs. It is more than God’s ability to ‘see’ into the future; it is his active and determined care to ensure that what he has promised for us actually does come to pass.”¹

God Has an Eternal Plan and Purpose for His Creation

God Has Purpose in What He Made, How He Made It, and Why He Made It

God has purpose in how he created each part of what he made. Above all, God’s creation is to bring glory and pleasure to him. John Hannah credits Jonathan Edwards with the thought that God delights not in seeing his creation in itself but rather seeing himself in his creation.² His creation is to reveal his glory (the outshining of his perfect character), to display his eternal power and divine nature. His power is eternal because it acted before he created time. His creation reveals his divine wisdom, compassion, sovereignty, omnipresence, omniscience, holiness, justice, and providence.

God also created the earth to provide for the needs of his creatures: an inhabitable environment with temperate climates, food and water, breathable air for our lungs, beautiful sunrises, thunder and lightning, rain, trees and plants, and animals.

God created people to relate to him with truth, intimacy, joy, and love—to walk with him, talk with him, know him, enjoy him, praise him, thank him, worship him, and glorify him. To glorify means to call attention to his greatness, to point the spotlight on him by our testimony and by reflecting his character. Why do we not do that? God did not make robots. He gave the first human pair, Adam and Eve, responsibility to obey him out of love for him. He gave them everything they needed for life. He also gave them one prohibition—not to eat of a certain tree, lest they die. What did they do with this responsibility? They doubted his word and disobeyed him, wanting to be like him, deciding what was right and wrong for themselves. They usurped his authority over them as their Creator. They wanted to be “in control” of their lives.

Adam and Eve lost their freedom to serve God from a pure heart. They exchanged the inferior substitute of asserting their will for the infinite value and beauty of glorifying God. The beautiful, perfect relationship was over. They hid from him because they knew they had done wrong. They were alienated from him. All of their descendants, including us, fell with them. Adam and Eve’s disobedience was no surprise to God. His plan to glorify himself and have a people specially related to him would not be thwarted by their disobedience.

Before God created the world, he had determined his plan of redemption. He predetermined how it would be played out for individuals, nations, and his specially chosen people. This is not plan B. God has always had only one plan. God immediately promised he would send a Redeemer descended from the woman (Genesis 3:15). He would remove his people’s alienation from God and restore harmony with him. God designed his creation to glorify his eternal Son as the promised Redeemer who would redeem a people set apart for himself and set apart from sin. He is the main character of the entire Bible. He is both the eternal Son of God (God the Son) and the true man, Jesus of Nazareth. History is his story. Through him, God displays his grace, mercy, and sovereignty toward undeserving people without sacrificing his holiness, justice, and righteousness.

The Bible Is the Record of God’s Outworking of His Plan

The Bible tells us that God foreknew those who would be part of the people specially related to him. “Foreknew” in this sense does not mean knowledge of something before it happens; it does not mean that God looks forward and sees who will love him and thus he chooses them. “Foreknew” means that God set his affection on certain individuals before the creation of the world, before they even existed, much less did anything to merit his love. These individuals he “foreknew” in the special relationship with him for which they were designed but missed through sin, and he purposed and orchestrated his plan toward them. He gave these chosen ones to the Redeemer, his unique Son, as a special love gift (John 17). The purpose of his affection was to reconcile them to him in this life and to prepare them...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Foreword
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction: Planning Ahead
• Lesson 1: Embracing God's Providence
• Lesson 2: Overview of Esther in God's Redemptive Plan
• Lesson 3: Setting the Stage for Esther
• Lesson 4: The New Queen: Esther
• Lesson 5: Haman's Rise to Power
• Lesson 6: The Moment for Esther
• Lesson 7: Two Simultaneous, Opposing Plans
• Lesson 8: Haman's Obituary: Honor, Humiliation, and Hanging
• Lesson 9: Celebrating Deliverance of the Jews
• Lesson 10: Joyful Worship
• Recommended Reading