God Has Appointed And Created Our Constitution

Consider the work of God;

For who can make straight 

what He has made crooked?

In the day of prosperity,

be joyful,

But in the day of adversity

consider;

Surely God has appointed
the one as well as the other,

so that man can find out

nothing that will come after him.

Ecclesiastes 7:13-14

     Nothing in this world occurs without being preordained, decreed by God. If God did not decree something to be or to happen then it would not be, nor would it happen. Nothing occurs or is by chance, man does not constitute what he is or how God has created him to be. You may cavil at this statement but cavil all you want let us look at this innateness of man. There are intuitions of the intellect. This you know to be true for there are certain truths which the mind perceives to be true immediately and without testimony. I have spoken of this previously but I want you to wrap your mind around these truths. For instance, geometry needs no external proof of its axioms. No one would deny that a part is less than the whole. Try and argue differently about the fact that the shortest distance between two points in a straight line. An intuitive truth is to be found in this: nothing cannot be a cause for every effect must have a cause. I know that evolutionist will disagree for they hold to a premise that the "original" something had to always exist and has no cause. Yet, in the same breath will state that everything formed from the "something" has its effect due to cause. Only they are not in agreement as to the "cause." This we do know; this conviction as stated above is not founded upon experience. Why? Because experience is by necessity limited. This conviction is not founded so as every effect which we have or that which other men have seen has had a cause; but that in the nature of things there can be no effect without an adequate cause. 

     Upon examination and illumination of this truth of conviction that it is innate truth, it is not because a child is born with it so that it is included in its infant consciousness, nor because the abstract principle is laid up in the mind, but simply because such is the nature of the mind. The mind is so constituted that it cannot but see these things to be true. This conviction of the truth of its innateness is not something added to a person, rather it is what the person is as is the sense of touch for we can have cognizance of these objects as soon as they are touched or presented to us, so then we are born with the intellectual faculty of perceiving these primary truths as soon as the are presented. 

     Moral truths cannot be said to be added due to experience or be some external necessity. The mind recognizes these truths to be true. All ethnic groups in this world recognize and have, at least some form, of morality, virtue, and the ability to recognize the essential distinction between right and wrong. Furthermore, they recognize and implement responsibility for character and conduct, that sin deserves punishment. No man needs to be taught them for they are so constituted in the nature of man and decreed by God to be true, and that which God created in man. No person goes and seeks to find these truths for they are within the man, it is their nature. 

     This fact that we are so constituted so as to know the truth that it is innate, intuitive causes some to cajole that they should be condemned by God for did He not make "me" this way? A person may complain about this fact, but God has His purpose for all His decrees and we are not a god, in fact we are not God. Try as you may to understand all of God's workings and you will only be frustrated for you are reaching further into things that God has not revealed: "The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but those things which are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law" (Deuteronomy 29:29). Or responsibility is to take what we do know of God and use it in our lives to live for Him, to live for our fellowman, and as the preacher so often states: "Be obedient and leave the consequences to God." It is by allowing the law of God to be alive and active in our lives that we find our selves and giving to us the ability to do good, and live according to that which we have been so constituted. We are responsible to live in such a way that we do not attempt to override what we are, that which we were created to be, a child of God, enabled by God, and drawn to Him by His very own act of drawing people to Him. How do we know that we are a child of God? It may by found in those facts that we desire to please Him in every way, we communicate in prayer by faith that God hears and acts upon our prayers. We read His Word, His very Word so given to man so that in it can be found His revelation about Himself and how He deals with man, what the end shall be for man. We become hungry for God, to know Him, to love Him, to serve Him. We do not do this outside of what God has revealed. What has He revealed in this manner? It is His law. There are those who teach and preach that the Old Law was destroyed by the death and resurrection of Jesus. This is not true! The requirements of the law, i.e., bringing a sheep to be slaughtered for their sins, etc. is no longer applicable, but the Law, those ten commandments are still in effect.  Jesus summarized the law when He said that the Law could be summed up: "Jesus said to him, "You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it; You shall love your neighbor as yourself.  On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets" (Matthew 22:37-40). We innately know that there is God, some may ignore this innateness, but even though misused, or misunderstood, the fact remains, we know that they is a God and that fact is not derived by any experience. All things have a cause, we are the effect of that cause, and that cause is God. 

My little children,

     let us not love

in word or in tongue,

    but in deed and in truth.

                       1 John 3:18

Keep His Commandments and Live in Him

Richard L. Crumb