I am the Lord, and there is no other; I form the light and create darkness, I make peace and create calamity; I, the Lord, do all these things” (Isaiah 6b-7).
It was Millenium Bug season, and many of my friends thought I was sick. They feared for me that my manic concern about the potential for untold hardship at the turn of the new year, 2000, not only was evidence that I suffered from Chicken Little Disease, but that I was giving up my commitment to the Reformed faith. We Reformed folk, if we believe anything, believe in the sovereignty of God. How, these friends worried, could I have even the slightest concern about this grave hardship befalling us, when I supposedly believed in the sovereignty of God? I told them often, “It’s because I believe in the sovereignty of God.” My friends reasoned in this manner- Cultural meltdown is a bad thing. God is in control of the future. Therefore bad things cannot happen. I reasoned this way- Cultural meltdown is a bad thing. God is in control of the future. Therefore “bad” things can happen. The difference in our views was that each of us believed competing unspoken premises. They believed God could not will for bad things to happen. I believe He not only could so will, but likely one day would.
Isaiah the prophet is, if only parenthetically, making the same point. That is, his larger point, which is in point of fact on point, is that God is God. He is the almighty one. To suggest that anything would come to pass that He did not sovereignly orchestrate is an affront to His sublime deity. To get us to more fully grasp this hard truth Isaiah, speaking for God, speaks an even harder truth. That is to say, neither is content to merely affirm that God is sovereign over all things, but both go the extra mile to affirm, yes, that includes the bad stuff too.
The easier version of the problem of evil addresses not the question of how men became sinners, but instead addresses the question of the fruit of that sin- why do bad things happen? Those outside the kingdom are wont to ask why bad things happen to good people. Those inside the kingdom don’t have such a pressing question for we know there are no good people. But we still struggle with the whys of hurricanes, pandemics, and in the case of Isaiah, oppression by foreign powers. Indeed we are so perplexed by the reality of suffering that we find ourselves in a rather bizarre position- trying to get God off the hook. We deny implicitly that we deserve the suffering we experience (which is true enough- we deserve far worse than any suffering we ever experience on this side of the veil) because we feel the need to justify God, to put distance between Him and our suffering lest He be found guilty for treating us unfairly.
My friends, thankfully, didn’t want to go in that direction. They were not willing to negotiate God’s sovereignty. God is sovereign, they rightly affirmed. God is good, they rightly affirmed. God won’t let these United States become a wasteland, they wrongly concluded. My friends’ real problem is that they confused these United States with the kingdom of God and they confused a pleasant and safe life with a good one. It is precisely because we were a wicked nation that worshipped affluence in 1999 that I feared for our safety. Though God spared us an earth-shaking calamity that time, does that mean He always will? Have we as a nation come to repentance? Have we owned our sin and turned from it?
That is not to say that I am now once again breaking out my “The End is Near” sandwich board. I don’t know now any more than I knew then what God was going to do in the near term future. I don’t know if our currency will go the way of the German mark, circa 1923. I don’t know if the ship of state will veer so far to the left that we’ll take on water and sink. I do know this however. If God sends a new and surprising kind of calamity upon us, it will be God who sends it. I know that His goodness and His sovereignty are not hedges against this. For we together stand guilty before Him. The very ground cries out because of the innocent blood.
More important, I know this. Isaiah’s prophecies end with the promise of the fullness of the kingdom. I know that because our God reigns, that if He sends calamity He sends it always for His glory, and for our good. Nothing truly “evil” could ever befall we who are His own. Hardship, yes. Cross bearing, by all means. Even death, of course. All of which are tools in His hand to make us more like Jesus. That, in the end, is not only not a calamity, but is the very height of glory. Fear not. He has already overcome the world.
Thankyou RC.
Spot on!
I’m am a bit surprised though that your emphasis was only on a rebellious United States
and not also on an apostate, rebellious, idolatrous Church.
2 Chronicles 7:14——- “My people”
Good point brother.
I do know this. We are not living in the biblical end times or last days. Those days Jesus spoke about are in the past, about 1900 years and counting. And any events occurring today have nothing to do with Jesus Olivet Discourse. God’s Church will be here on earth until eternity, it will never disappear in a rapture and come back years later. God’s word declares victory for His people, not leaving the earth, like a dog with its tail between its legs, because the devil got too powerful. Those who believe that, might want to sing “Onward Christian Soldiers” and fall inline with the word of God. His Church will never be defeated!
I also know, God is sovereign over all things, and He does not afflict willingly, as the Prophet Jeremiah wrote, “I am the man that hath seen affliction by the rod of his wrath…” as he relayed more of his afflictions and troubles in Lamentations chapter three. Oh yes, “It is of the LORD’s mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning, great is thy faithfulness.”
Many other things, I am not sure, and don’t have a clue. Trouble will probably get much worse. This earth will be here until time ends, but I don’t believe it ever will. I don’t know if the USA will be here next year, or maybe invaded by China or some other nation. Maybe the Yellowstone caldera (there are signs something is happening), just like in the movie 2012, will annihilate much of the USA.
“Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter. Fear God, and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.” Ecclesiastes 12:13