Strange Fire Revisited: Providence Is Remarkable - by Matthew Tebbit

Found here. Our comments in bold.
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For some reason the author finds it necessary to reminisce about the glories of the Strange Fire conference, held over ten years ago. It seems the sole purpose of the conference was to mock and denigrate charismatic Christians, and the author is more than happy to join in.

We have examined a few of the conference presentations in these pages (here, here, here, and here) and have not found any of them to be biblically compelling. 

So the author wants to talk about nameless charismatics doing all sorts of egregious things. He goes on and on, with each accusation getting more and more fantastic. It's what people do when they are completely unacquainted with the other side.  

The author uses the term "providence" nine times but never directly defines it. We shall do his work for him. Providence is

God omnisciently directing the universe and the affairs of humankind with wise benevolence.

This is also known as as "ordinary providence," where God uses the mechanisms and circumstances of the natural world He created in order to effect His will. This is in contradistinction to miracles (or "extraordinary providence"), which is God working
directly, and without the secondary causes.

So quite simply, providence is when God uses the created order to get His things done, while miracles are His direct interventions. 

It only took us a handful of words to describe these concepts. Hopefully this will help the reader.

Our initial reaction to the issue providence versus the miraculous is that it is a distinction without a difference. All of God's work is miraculous. Everything He does is an exercise of His power. So why would cessationists like the author press the issue? What is he trying to prove?

Our answer is that the author is so offended by charismatics that he is fixated on them. Further, he doesn't believe in a "supernatural" church. His doctrine as a cessationist is that miraculous gifts have ceased. God no longer empowers Christians with gifts of healing, prophecy, or tongues. therefore, in our present day He only uses circumstance and the elements of His creation to work out his purposes.

Providence, then, is the workaround to the miraculous, and a handy bludgeon to beat down his theological adversaries. 

Further, the author manages to quote but a single snippet of Scripture. How can people like this consider themselves Bible teachers is beyond us.

Lastly, and most importantly, what present-day charismatics do or don't do is irrelevant to making one's case from the Bible. The author doesn't do so.
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God is not a God of party tricks. He is not a magician or a clown. He is not a pyrotechnician or a palm reader. (Does any Christian believe any of these things? The construction of a Straw Man begins with the author's first sentence.)

He is the sovereign, wise, holy God who works all things according to the counsel of His will, for His good pleasure. He is the God of providence.

While that should be obvious from Scripture, (Which Scriptures? Well, the author will never tell us.)

the history of Charismatic teaching would suggest otherwise. (The author will build on his Straw Man by painting with a broad brush, as if all charismatics were kooks and charlatans. This is how political leftists argue. It is unseemly to see a supposed Christian teacher using such rhetorical techniques.

This is certainly a sad development. Ordinarily a Bible teacher's task is to make plain the Bible, but apparently now there is an aspect of advocating for a particular doctrine absent the Bible, because it can be used as ammunition against someone with a different doctrine.)

The movement has boasted a repertoire of everything from glittery “glory” clouds to leg-lengthening parlor tricks. In the hands of charismatics, the biblical gifts of prophecy, healing, and languages (tongues) have been downgraded to intuition, sleights of hand, and gibberish. (The author continues to construct his Straw Man...)

They are hardly the signs of a true apostle (2 Corinthians 12:12), and bear a stronger resemblance to the ruses of a con artist. 

The Charismatic movement fervently professes the kind of bona fide miracles that Scripture recounts, but the reality is, they have not been able to deliver. The evidence of their “supernatural” power—uncontrollable laughter, crying, shouting, animal noises, convulsions, collapsing, rolling on the floor, etc.—are about as compelling as a daytime TV infomercial. (The author continues to construct his Straw Man...)

Simply put, they do not measure up to the biblical standard. (What might be that Bible standard? Well, he won't tell us.)

So why hold on to them? (He appears to be unacquainted with the biblical arguments in favor of the charismata.)

To charismatics, the idea that signs and wonders were confined to particular periods of time according to God’s purpose, as the biblical record testifies, (Sir, where in the Bible do we find these things? 

We examine this faulty argument here.)

is unacceptable. The same goes for the cessationist argument that the miraculous gifts (All gifts are miraculous. All gifts are Holy Spirit empowerments.)

were uniquely designed for the apostolic age— (The author seems to have an aversion to the Bible. What are these arguments? Where in the Bible do we find them?)

it is deeply unsatisfying to those who thirst for the sensational. 

The thrill of the miraculous, the allure of power, the promise of amazement, the appeal of emotional experience—all of these surpass God’s ordinary workings in the eyes of charismatics, (The author continues to construct his Straw Man...)

and pull people into the movement in droves. Even continuationists under the reformed banner are guilty of the same mindset, asserting that if God does not work through miraculous gifts today, He does not work at all. (Who says this? Will the author explain anything?) 

For them, God is wherever the fireworks are. (Who believes this? Quotes? examples? documentation?)

What, then, do we make of God’s mysterious work of providence? To large swathes of the professing church who are fixated on nature-defying phenomena, it begins to look a little dull. But is providence a second-rate work? (This is getting tedious. Who says it is a second-rate work?)

The Puritan John Flavel didn’t think so. He wrote that providence “is the great support and solace of the saints in all the distresses that befall them. . . . It were not worth while to live in a world . . . devoid of God and providence.”[1] To Flavel, reflecting on the providence of God was “a little heaven.”[2] (The author can quote historical figures, but has yet to quote the Bible.)

Stephen Charnock agreed. Like Flavel, he affirmed God’s intimate involvement with every detail of history: “All God’s providences are but his touch of the strings of this great instrument of the world.”[3]

Like Christians throughout history, they celebrated the reality that God works “all things according to the counsel of His will” (Ephesians 1:11, NKJV). (Finally, a little bit of the Bible, but not a Scripture that documents any of the author's claims.)

Their faith did not hang on the continual presence of signs and wonders—it rested on God’s ordinary, yet awe-inspiring governance of creation. (Whose faith relies on signs and wonders? Our patience is growing thin. So far the author has explained exactly nothing, while simultaneously making ridiculous assertions about a caricature of his theological opponents.)

That is exactly what Phil Johnson picks up in this crucial sermon from the Strange Fire conference. (We critique this presentation here. Suffice to say, we were less than impressed.)

The Charismatic obsession with dazzling experiences (The author continues to construct his Straw Man...)

has debased the normal ways in which God accomplishes His extraordinary works. (The "normal" ways God accomplishes His "extraordinary works?" What? Did the author proof read this?)

It has undermined the great doctrine of providence (A doctrine that remains a mystery, if we had to rely on the author.)

and encouraged a view of God more akin to a showman than a holy, wise, and sovereign King.

Those who will honor the Lord must avoid a hankering for signs and wonders, and must cherish by faith the marvelous work of God in His world. (His parting shot is an imperative, unexplained and undocumented. 

What a sorry piece of teaching.)

Providence is remarkable.

Watch Phil Johnson's message "Providence Is Remarkable":