My husband is spiritually gifted as a leader and drawn to watch the daily news. I’m an ‘information gatherer’ yet have little desire to gather that information. The difference between us is intriguing. He is big picture and I am details. However, today’s readings from Charnock give me more interest in world events. This writer explains how God, in His wisdom, brings disasters for His purposes.
Therefore the Lord has kept ready the calamity and has brought it upon us, for the Lord our God is righteous in all the works that he has done, and we have not obeyed his voice. (Daniel 9:14)First, His timing is always perfect. The judgment on Sodom was suspended until Lot was safe. The early church was not invaded by violent persecutions until established in the faith. Paul was secured from Nero’s chains and the nets of his enemies until he had broke off the chain of the devil from many cities of the Gentiles.
God’s wisdom brings good out of evil using even sin and punishment. The church is more like heaven when most persecuted; the storms of trials have often cleansed it. Job’s integrity was clarified when the devil was permitted to afflict him. God outwits Satan when He uses his temptations to purify us. He brings the clearest light out of the thickest darkness, makes poisons to become medicines. Death itself, the greatest punishment in this life, God has made to his people the gate of heaven, our entrance into immortality.
More examples: The Jews bind Paul and send him to Rome. His mouth is stopped in Judea, but opened in one of the greatest cities of the world, and his enemies unwittingly contribute to the increase of the knowledge of Christ by those chains where he was faithfully “proclaiming the kingdom of God and teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ with all boldness and without hindrance.” (Acts 28:31)
His bonds also encouraged others: “And most of the brothers, having become confident in the Lord by my imprisonment, are much more bold to speak the word without fear.” (Philippians 1:14) How often has God used suffering which appears like judgment to gain favor to the gospel among sinners? How often has He multiplied the church by death and massacres and increased it by those means used to annihilate it?
God could use supernatural means, but often does not. For instance, when Jacob’s family was facing starvation in Canaan, He could have turned the stones of their country into bread, but He sends them to Egypt opening a way for their their removal from that place and revealing His saving power.
God could have struck Goliath with a thunderbolt from heaven when he blasphemed His name, but He used the natural strength of a stone and the motion of a sling by the arm of David to confront the giant and free Judea from this enemy.
God can use anything from the veering of the wind to change the results of a naval battle or even the accidental stumbling of a horse to fling a leader in battle. The wisdom of God uses the natural order to work out His intended preservation of His people.
I form light and create darkness; I make well-being and create calamity; I am the Lord, who does all these things. (Isaiah 45:7)Charnock changed my interest in the news by saying “troubles and wars among a people are many times not destroying, but medicinal” and intended to cure people of the sin that is going to destroy them, sin often contracted during a long term of peace. This is not obvious, yet it makes sense and fits with God’s goodness.
PRAY: Jesus, I now better understand how and why the world is in such a mess. It seems to me that You are saying “You want to run your own lives? Let’s see how that works.” Yet this goes farther. You allow the turmoil to correct, or to bring out good, that many people will not experience the wrath yet to come. May Your will be done.
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