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." (Rom.8:28)

Gary Shepard

If my finger were on the golden latch of paradise, and my foot were on its jasper threshold, I could not take the last step so as to enter heaven unless the grace which brought me so far should enable me fully and fairly to complete my pilgrimage. Salvation is God's work, not man's. This is the theology which Jonah learned in the great fish college, in the university of the great deep, to which college it would be very good if many of our divines in these days could be sent, for human learning often puffeth up with the idea of human sufficiency; but he that is schooled in the college of a deep experience, and made to know the vileness of his own heart, as he peers into its chambers of imagery, will confess that from first to last, salvation is not of him that willeth or him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy.

Charles Spurgeon

Just as the sinner's despair of any hope in himself is the first prerequisite of a sound conversion, so the loss of all confidence in himself is the first essential in the believer's growth in grace.

A.W. Pink

THE RICHES OF CHILDREN AND MEN

The more abundance of truly valuable things a man has, the more he has of true riches. A child counts himself rich when he has a great many blocks and marbles and playtoys, for these suit his childish age and fancy. A worldly man counts himself rich when he has a great store of gold and silver, or lands and heritages, or bills and bonds. But the child of God counts himself rich when he has God for his portion, Christ to be his Redeemer, and the Spirit for his guide, sanctifier, and comforter, which is as much above a carnal man's estate in the world as a carnal man's is above a child's toys and trifles; yea, infinitely more!

Thomas Manton

THE PERFECT LAW SETS FREE

When the Hebrew servant's liberty was proclaimed, he was delivered from his master, from the command of his master, from the threatening of his master, and from the service of his master, he was a free man; and yet this man, that went out at the year of jubilee, is, says God, my servant. "For they are my servants, which I brought forth out of the land of Egypt: they shall not be sold as bondmen."(Lev. 25:42) So the believing sinner is delivered from the law, that being dead (Romans 7:6); from the command of the law, for the letter killeth; from the curse of the law, (Gal.3:13); and form the service of the law, for he shall "serve in the newness of the Spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter." He is a free man: "if the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed;" and yet he that is this free man is Christ's servant (I Cor. 7:22); for though he is not under the law, yet he is not without law to God, but under this law of liberty to Christ, who has made him free indeed, and he that looks into this law of liberty, and continues in it shall be blessed in his deed.

No doubt but many of the mercenary Hebrew masters were grieved at this law of liberty; they were galled and chafed in their minds to see their slaves go out free. Hence we read that Zedekiah made a covenant with all the people at Jerusalem to proclaim liberty to their servants unjustly detained: that every man should let his man servant or maid servant, being an Hebrew or Hebrewess, go free; that they should not serve themselves of them. When the princes and people heard of this covenant of the kings, they obeyed it, and let their servants go free; "but afterwards they turned, and caused the servants and handmaids, whom they had let go free, to return, and brought them into subjection for servants and for handmaids." "He that leadeth into captivity shall go into captivity," says John (Rev. 13:10); and so it was here, the masters hated the Lord's release; they refused to break the yoke, therefore God put their necks under the yoke of the king of Babylon (Jer. 27:8).

These mercenary masters are lively figures of many of our preachers; and it is with allusion to them that the inspired penman often speak of false apostles and deceitful works, who under the veil of the law, and the influence of the devil transformed, call the everlasting gospel Antinomianism, the preachers of it Anti-nomians, the powerful operations of the Spirit of it enthusiasm, and the liberty of it licentiousness.