March 5, 2019
Good Morning Fellow Travelers,
Read: Isaiah 40:13-31
“Who hath directed the Spirit of the Lord, or being his counsellor hath taught him?” Isaiah 40:13
I mentioned recently to someone that God is not on trial. This man was blaming God for the evil in the world, and was against God because he felt He does nothing about it. This is probably the question that the ungodly charge God with most frequently. In fact, it is the reason many turn from God. When I reminded him that God was not on trial, he came back with, “Yes He is, and I’m the jury.”
Our text verses remind us that God needs no counselor. In His desire to have mankind worship Him, He created him with the awful power of choice. God did not want puppets to worship Him; He rather wanted voluntary loving worship from us.
God is not the originator of evil. That is the devil’s domain. He, together with the evil men and women he has seduced to sin, creates the suffering that goes on in the world today. The broken homes, the abused children, the adulterous relationships, the killing of untold millions of the unborn, are all testimony of man out of control, morally and spiritually.
Is God on trial? No, we are on trial. None of this wickedness needs to be. Why does God allow it? Romans 9, verse 22-23 asks an enlightening question. “What if God, willing to show his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction; and that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory.”
God endures the wicked so that He can pour out His mercy on the believing and obedient. He is not on trial, you are. I am.
– James Baer
