"IT IS THE LORD" "And Samuel told him (Eli) every whit, and hid nothing from him. And he said, It is the LORD: let Him do what seemeth Him good" (1 Samuel 3:18). Eli sought to know what the LORD had said to Samuel, and the young lad held nothing back in setting before him those things God had spoken. He did not change the message, soften it or water it down. The Lord had disclosed to Samuel that He would judge the house of Eli because of the vileness of his family. His sons taught the people contrary to the Word of the Lord and lived in willful rebellion against divine law, which behavior Eli was well aware of and allowed to continue.
Notice the attitude of Eli when Samuel spoke to him about the message he received. "It is the LORD: let Him do what seemeth Him good." Eli recognized the sovereign right of Jehovah to do all His pleasure. God will do that which pleases Him and opposition to His absolute authority is senseless and futile. The LORD is righteous and just in all His ways. When He punishes iniquity, it is in accordance with His justice; and when He is gracious, that must also be in accordance with His justice. All that He does for His people in salvation - forgiveness, acceptance, justification -must be in done a manner that is consistent with His holy character.
Do not think that the salvation of sinners required God to lower His standard of perfection and set aside the requirements of His law that demanded death for sin. Justice and truth are not compromised when He pours out His mercy upon the undeserving; they are honored and magnified in the substitutionary death and resurrection of Christ Jesus, the Surety, Representative and Substitute of His people. "Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins" (1 John 4:10). "Propitiation" is literally, mercy seat, and sets before us the satisfaction or appeasement of divine justice. Christ Jesus, by giving His life a ransom for many, satisfied the demands of the law, put away the sins of His people and brought in everlasting righteousness. Yes, God is right when He saves and He is right when He condemns. "It is the LORD: let Him do what seemeth Him good." –Pastor Jim Byrd
RESTORATION OF THE LOST SHEEP "My people hath been lost sheep: their shepherds have caused them to go astray, they have turned them away on the mountains: they have gone from mountain to hill, they have forgotten their restingplace" (Jeremiah 50:6). Our first view of this peculiar people shall be in the place where God finds them. "My people," He says, "hath been lost sheep." They do not become sheep by being found, nor do they cease to be sheep by being lost. They were sheep eternally in the mind of God; and their becoming lost did not alter nor destroy their character of being sheep any more than the wandering of a sheep literally and naturally from the fold turns it into a goat. It may be lame, sick, or diseased; it may stray away miles from the fold; its fleece may be torn with briars or soiled with mud, and its whole appearance so altered that the shepherd can scarcely recognize it; but it is a sheep still, and ever will be a sheep while it continues to exist. And thus the elect being sheep eternally in the mind of God, and as such possessing an eternal union with the Son of God, could not cease to be sheep by falling in Adam, nor do their personal, individual falls, slips, and transgressions destroy their original, unalterable character. –J. C. Philpot
"Among the gods there is none like unto Thee, O Lord; neither are there any works like unto Thy works. All nations whom Thou hast made shall come and worship before Thee, O Lord; and shall glorify Thy name. For Thou art great, and doest wondrous things: Thou art God alone." (Psalm 86:8-10)
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