The true author of Scripture, not only can accurately predict future events but is also sovereign over the development of language. God knew Isaiah 7:14 would be further fulfilled by Jesus’ birth to a virgin, even though the original sign wasn’t about a virgin, but a young woman giving birth to a son and naming him Immanuel.

Have you ever thought you were so familiar with something, only to find out later you’d been overlooking some important details? This happens to me with songs, books, and movies. I hear, read, or see them so many times, only to be amazed when, out of the blue, I notice something in them I didn’t see before. Sometimes this happens to us with familiar Bible passages too.
Here’s the familiar: Jesus was born of a virgin, and Isaiah 7:14 prophesied about it. Nothing shocking yet. But let’s look at the details surrounding Isaiah’s statement about the virgin birth.
King Ahaz of Judah was having a bad day. Ephraim and Syria were attacking Jerusalem and trying to overthrow the king. So, God sends Isaiah to King Ahaz to tell him these attackers won’t be successful but will be destroyed. Then God tells Ahaz to ask for a sign, but Ahaz refuses. God gives him one anyway. Here it is: “Behold, a virgin will be with child and bear a son, and she will call His name Immanuel” (Isa. 7:14).
Wait a second. How is the prophecy about Jesus being born of a virgin a sign for Ahaz? Jesus won’t be born for another 700 years. Let’s keep reading.
He will eat curds and honey at the time He knows enough to refuse evil and choose good. For before the boy will know enough to refuse evil and choose good, the land whose two kings you dread will be forsaken. (Isa. 7:15–16)
These verses explain the sign God is giving Ahaz. A baby named Immanuel will be born, and before the kid is very old, the kings attacking Ahaz will be gone. This was fulfilled in Ahaz’s day, and the little boy named Immanuel was an ongoing sign that God delivered Ahaz and Judah. We find in the very next chapter of Isaiah that Immanuel was living during Ahaz’s reign (Isa. 8:8).
The main point of this sign in Isaiah is that a child would shortly be born.
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Knowing God’s providence doesn’t guarantee easy sleep. It isn’t Nyquil. We may go to bed every night feeling like the Hamans of the world will still win. Trusting in God’s providence isn’t magic. It’s a daily habit of remembering the gospel. The gospel is the greatest evidence of God’s providence. God plans, accomplishes and applies our salvation (Eph 1:3-14). God’s good providence was at work before we were even born.

My anxieties get excited when I go to bed. The sound of my head hitting the pillow is their alarm to wake up and send my mind spiralling about things I can’t control.
I tell myself, “Trust the Lord and go to sleep.” That’s easy to believe when I can pinpoint clear signs of God’s presence. But can God be trusted when life is chaos? When God seems absent how can I trust him and rest?
The Bible leads us to meditate on God’s providence so that we will not freak out when life is chaos.
Providence describes the purpose of God in history. John Piper’s definition is a good one: Providence is God’s purposeful sovereignty. The Bible shows us that God governs all things, and his purpose is his glory and the good of his people (Gen 50:20 & Rom 8:28-30). To contemplate God’s providence, we may linger in Romans 8, considering the scope and certainty of God’s purposes. Or maybe we sit with Psalm 23, meditating on his goodness in leading us along a hard path. But Esther 6 is a great passage for contemplating God’s providence when God seems invisible.
The Book of Esther never mentions God by name. Esther lived in the time of exile when Israel was under Persian rule under King Ahasuerus. Haman, the king’s right-hand man, gets royal permission to annihilate the Israelites. God seems absent and his people seem destined for a swift and sudden end.
In many ways, Esther resonates with our lives today. Day after day we go through the motions, and unless we are intentional, God is not referenced. On top of that, the gospel doesn’t seem to make any progress. Society feels under the control of godless people, who call good evil and praise evil as if it were good. It’s not hard to assume God is absent and his purpose has failed.
Esther 6 gives us hope by reminding us that God is never absent, and never on his heels. Unknown to the characters in the story, God works for Esther and his people. Esther 6 reveals the invisible hand of God, helping us trust his unseen providence.
Coincidence or Providence?
Many so-called coincidences happen in Esther 6. Ahasuerus happens to have a sleepless night. He happens to ask for the book of memorable deeds. The scribes happen to read from an obscure place about an event five years ago. It just so happens that Mordecai never received a gift for saving the king. Haman happens to be in the court at the time, so he has to carry out the command to honour Mordecai, his sworn enemy. After plotting to destroy Mordecai, Haman proclaims Mordecai’s honour throughout the city. This all takes place the night before Esther pleads with the king to rescue Mordecai’s people from Haman’s horrible, decreed massacre! Coincidence? I think not.
These so-called coincidences are the purposeful providence of God. Hidden from the characters, but blatant to readers.
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We need to admit with a measure of shame that there is a great difference between the Saviour’s dealings with us and the way we often deal with each other. And it need not be! We have a process given us so that wounds may be healed, relationships mended and sins forgiven. We have all been hurt. We have all found ourselves on the receiving end of someone else’s sin. But we have just two options. We forbear—which is to say that we forgive them and treat them as if it never happened—or we bring it privately to them.

*[Author’s] Note: As I write about sin and reconciliation, I am not referring to sins of the Church or churches (collectively or in general). I am referring, rather, to the private or public sins of individual people within the Church. While letters/blogs/posts are worthy of public reply, if the ‘offence’ caused by the writer has brought about a breach in the relationship Matthew 18 should be followed.
We have a hard time dealing with sin and offence in the Church. This difficulty can be explained both by pride and an inadequate understanding of grace. But it can also be explained by a simple failure to follow the process outlined in Matthew 18.
In Matthew 18:15 Jesus tells us the first step that is to be taken: “Moreover if thy brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone: if he shall hear thee thou hast gained thy brother.” Here I want to over that first step.
It is worth observing that Jesus is not speaking about what to do when you know that you have wounded someone else. It is assumed that knowing what you have done wrong you will ask their forgiveness. Here Jesus is describing what must happen when you believe someone has sinned against you or at very least has caused you offence.
Still, before you even get to this stage—before you decide to go to that person—you need to make a decision. You don’t always have to go to them and tell them everything they have done wrong. You can choose to forbear.
What does that mean?
For many forbearing means saying nothing because they don’t want to seem petty. So, they don’t say anything to the person who has offended them, but they either hold on to the grudge or they tell someone else. Forbearance is something else entirely. It is the deliberate choice to set the sin (or offence) aside as though it never happened. In tender-heartedness we forgive and behave toward the person as though we were never offended.
Here, then, is the choice that is set before you. You can take offense at what has been done and begin then to deal with it according to the rules laid out in Matthew 18 or you hold your peace. But if you’re going to hold your peace that means dismissing it as though it never happened. It doesn’t get spoken of to your close friends, it doesn’t remain a grudge you nourish, and it doesn’t become a barrier to the relationship.  In other words, its done and over with. You have put it behind you in the same spirit that Jesus took your sins and buried them in the deepest sea. Again, as far as you are concerned it didn’t happen.
I want you to see that there is a sense in which God has hemmed us in. We have just two options. Either we forbear and forgive or we go directly to the person who has sinned against us. There is no third option.
If I had to pin (unnecessary) division in the church on just one thing it would easily be this: It would be the failure so common in the Church to follow this simple first step of going to those who have hurt us and telling them and telling them alone.
Sadly, we often refuse either one of these options. We do not tell them, but neither do we forbear.  Instead, while skipping Matthew 18 entirely, we tell someone else. But what is gained when that is done? Paul says that we are to minister grace with our words. We are to speak in order to edify. When we speak to wound and not to heal, when we bypass Matthew 18 and instead spread the news of what has happened to others how have edified the fallen brother? How have we ministered grace?
When someone has come to me with news of someone’s else sin I have learned on principle to send them away. They must first go privately to the person who has offended them. In the same way I am learning, on principle, that when others think ill of me I can do nothing until they follow the steps outlined in Matthew 18. Consider your own reaction to news that rumours (about you) abound. How do you respond to slander? How do you react when you learn that someone else is offended by you?  You may sometimes find yourself in a situation where you get the ‘sense’ that something is wrong, though you cannot pinpoint the issue. You may have observed that a relationship has changed for the worse though you don’t know why. You may have heard from another source that someone is offended with you. We have all experienced this kind of thing, and it is frustrating. But until that person comes to us there is nothing we can do except pray. The responsibility at this point is theirs. It behooves them to come to us privately—and come with something specific.
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