THE ENEMY’S WORK.
BY W.L.G.
“Do not err, my beloved brethren. Every
good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father
of lights, with Whom is no variables, neither shadow of turning. –
James. i:16,17
Is it true that God doeth all things? If God is the author of all things-and this fact is fully fixed in our minds0then how can we be disturbed at any of the events of life, however painful or afflictive they may be? If this be true, every event should be a cause of earnest thanksgiving and praise to God.
But let us pause
a moment and ask the question, “Is God
the author of all things?” In answer to this let His own words be heard in
the case of the woman who had been bowed together “lo, these eighteen years.”
He says, “Satan hath bound her.” Had
you been permitted to call at this woman’s home before she was healed, you
would doubtless have heard her friends, in their sympathy, encouraging her to
bear with fortitude her affliction and being sent from God.
Let us be
entirely sure that our afflictions are from God before we say, “Let us bear
them patiently and not ask to have them removed.” Had this woman ascribed her
affliction to God for these long, eighteen years, she would most clearly have
been ascribing to Him that which He most clearly denies.
Again, in the
parable where the tares are represented as appearing among the wheat, our
Saviour says, “An enemy hath done this.”
The Word very
clearly sets forth that God is not the author of our temptations, but that
“every good gift and every perfect gift” is from Him. In James i:13,14, we read,
“Let no man say that he is tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil,
neither tempteth He any man, but every man is tempted when he is drawn away
from his own lust and enticed.” Sin is the greater confidence for deliverance
when we realize that He is not the author of our afflictions, but that “an
enemy hath done this.”
But you say, “He
permits suffering.” Yes, He permits it until we are willing to trust Him for
the deliverance which He has already provided for us. He also permits sin to
exist in the world, but He is not the author of sin. I should be very unwilling
to charge God with being the author of all the wickedness and confusion which
we find in this world, then why ascribe to Him all our sickness and afflictions
when He so plainly teaches us that “an enemy hath done this”?
The question may
arise, “Does not God approve of these afflictions?” The fact of their existence
does not prove God’s approbation of them, any more than the fact of the
existence of sin proves His approbation of that. The adversary would gladly
charge God with being the author of this world’s misery.
Let us rather
realize that sickness and suffering are but the withering blighting touch of
the Devil, and this will lead us to flee to the Saviour for aid, flee to His
loving embrace, and ask and trust Him to fulfill in us the redemptive plan
already provided for soul and body.
