Mrs. MacDonald also seems to believe that God would allow men to dictate what He does. This flies in the face of all that the Bible teaches. The clay does not tell the potter how it ought to be shaped, or what its purpose ought to be. The clay is always at the mercy of the potter, never the other way around.
Her crucial mistake, however, is that Mrs. MacDonald believes that God is somehow behaving badly, when the truth is that everything He does -EVERYTHING HE DOES - is good, right, just, and even loving, whether we perceive it that way or not.
The Worst Response
The most horrific response a Christian can have towards tragedy - whether it be the slaughter of baby boys in Bethlehem, a car accident which paralyzes a person's body, or simply finding out you have cancer - is to deny God's control.
I was told that a popular pastor responded to the tragic events of 9/11 in this way: "Well, I guess there are some things God just can't control." That is completely wrong. I would rather believe that God has ordained bad things and is working them out for good than to believe that He has no control over them at all. If God is not in control, then He is not trustworthy. What right does God have to promise salvation, inner peace, and blessings if there are forces in the world that He cannot control that might disrupt His plans? No. At all cost, whatever the world might say, we must hold to the sovereignty of God.
Are you going through some sort of tragedy in your life? Has God brought you into a time of trouble or distress? Then consider these words of Charles Spurgeon, and find comfort for your soul.
"There is no attribute more comforting to His children than that of God's Sovereignty. Under the most adverse circumstances, in the most severe trials, they believe that Sovereignty has ordained their afflictions, that Sovereignty overrules them, and that Sovereignty will sanctify them all. There is nothing for which the children ought more earnestly to contend than the doctrine of their Master over all creation - the Kingship of God over all the works of His own hands - the Throne of God and His right to sit upon that Throne. On the other hand, there is no doctrine more hated by [unbelievers], no truth of which they have made such a football, as the great, stupendous, but yet most certain doctrine of the Sovereignty of the infinite Jehovah. Men will allow God to be everywhere except on His throne. They will allow Him to be in His workshop to fashion worlds and make stars. They will allow Him to be in His almonry to dispense alms and bestow His bounties. They will allow Him to sustain the earth and bear up the pillars thereof, or light the lamps of heaven, or rule the waves of the ever-moving ocean; but when God ascends His throne, His creatures then gnash their teeth. And we proclaim an enthroned God, and His right to do as He wills with His own, to dispose of His creatures as He thinks well, without consulting them in the matter; then it is that we are hissed and execrated, and then it is that men turn a deaf ear to us, for God on His throne is not the God they love. But it is God upon the throne that we love to preach. It is God upon His throne whom we trust."
Justin Nale is the pastor of Mount Hermon Missionary Baptist Church, a Southern Baptist Church in Rocky Mount, NC - http://www.mhmbc.org
收藏至：
