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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