Blaming God or Blessing God?



THE SCRIPTURES PLAINLY TEACH that God is the first cause of all things. He does according to His will in the armies of heaven and among the inhabitants of earth. He works all things after the counsel of His own will. He does all His pleasure, raising up and putting down, making rich and making poor, afflicting or healing....all things!

As He does so, the responses and attitudes of men and women to these "all things" greatly reflect their attitude toward the God who sends them. I'm not talking about a few words spoken in the heat of pain or the piercing sorrow of grief. Jacob, the man of faith, spoke in haste at a time of great sorrow, "all things are against me." I'm talking about the individual’s general attitude and response after the initial shock has passed. When their thoughts again are gathered and a course must be taken, what will they say and do? Will they blame or bless the God who is the first cause of all things.

If all the second causes, whether they be men, events, rulers, diseases, weather or whatever are blamed, then God is blamed. Our displeasure with providence is displeasure with the One who orders all providence. There is great need to recognize and admit this. If I am dissatisfied with that which God has ordained, I question God's wisdom, His love, His grace and His purpose. I set myself above God and by my thoughts, words and actions declare that I could do better as God than God Himself. Oh what practical idolatry!

When all the events that claimed Job's property, wealth, members of his family and his honor had passed, Job responded, "Naked came I from out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return thither: the LORD gave, and the LORD hath taken away, BLESSED be the name of the LORD" [JOB 1:21]. The story of Job closes out with these words, "So the LORD blessed the latter end of Job more than his beginning."

Oh the wisdom, grace, love and goodness of God! He is to be blessed in all things and blamed in none. May He save us from our sinful tendency to blame (even through second causes) rather than bless Him. May we bless Him who "works all things together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose" [ROMANS 8:28].


-Gospel report by preacher Gary Shepard

Sovereign Grace Baptist church of Jacksonville, North Carolina USA

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