When Christ came into my life, one of the first things He taught me was that He would use everything that happened to me for my good. However, the “good” was His work of transforming me into the image of Christ. I’d had many failures and felt that I had no future, so this promise in Romans 8:28-29 seemed impossible even after my astonished wonder of salvation and sins forgiven.
“And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.”
As hopeful as that promise is, it also includes the painful parts, such as when God reveals sin, turns me from old habits (that die hard), opens my eyes to how needy I am, and shows me that I cannot overcome sin by sheer willpower. I need the power of God to RESTRAIN me.
David was called a man of God’s own heart, but he battled temptation just as all of God’s people do. In anger against a man who refused him hospitality, he planned to kill him when the man’s wife wisely approached him. David repented and she said, “Now then, my lord, as the Lord lives, and as your soul lives, because the Lord has restrained you from bloodguilt and from saving with your own hand, now then let your enemies and those who seek to do evil to my lord be as Nabal.”
David echoed her words in response, “For as surely as the Lord, the God of Israel, lives, who has restrained me from hurting you, unless you had hurried and come to meet me, truly by morning there had not been left to Nabal so much as one male.”
Both of them gave credit to God for holding back David from sin. David later said in Psalm 40:11, “As for you, O Lord, you will not restrain your mercy from me; your steadfast love and your faithfulness will ever preserve me!” And another psalmist knew the same truth about God . . .
Psalm 78:38. “Yet he, being compassionate, atoned for their iniquity and did not destroy them; he restrained his anger often and did not stir up all his wrath.”
If God did not restrain His anger, where would any of us be? The Word of the Lord is clear that without Him and the power of the Holy Spirit, even when we know better, we still resist God and cannot discipline ourselves. I need to keep my eyes on what He reveals to me lest the restraint He gives is ignored.
Proverbs 29:18–19. “Where there is no prophetic vision the people cast off restraint, but blessed is he who keeps the law. By mere words a servant is not disciplined, for though he understands, he will not respond.”
The prophets understood that God restrains His people because He promised to save us from our sinful ways. Isaiah 48:9–11 says:
“For my name’s sake I defer my anger; for the sake of my praise I restrain it for you, that I may not cut you off. Behold, I have refined you, but not as silver; I have tried you in the furnace of affliction. For my own sake, for my own sake, I do it, for how should my name be profaned? My glory I will not give to another.”
At the time, and maybe even later, this restraint seems unlike God and a mystery. Isaiah cried out, “Your holy cities have become a wilderness; Zion has become a wilderness, Jerusalem a desolation. Our holy and beautiful house, where our fathers praised you, has been burned by fire, and all our pleasant places have become ruins. Will you restrain yourself at these things, O Lord? Will you keep silent, and afflict us so terribly?”
Jeremiah also said, “The Lord determined to lay in ruins the wall of the daughter of Zion; he stretched out the measuring line; he did not restrain his hand from destroying; he caused rampart and wall to lament; they languished together.”
In the NT, the answer to such severe discipline is explained by looking at the plus side:
1 Corinthians 7:35. I say this for your own benefit, not to lay any restraint upon you, but to promote good order and to secure your undivided devotion to the Lord.
GAZE INTO HIS GLORY. God keeps teaching me to keep my focus on His promises lest the process of being transformed becomes a discouragement and dread. The end result will be glorious but for this life, He restrains evil (See 2 Thessalonians 2:3–7). This means if any sin resides in me, for His glory and my good, He will do whatever is necessary to hold me back from being a rebel instead of joyfully yielding to His transforming power. Amen.
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