Now the LORD had
prepared a
great fish to
swallow Jonah.
And Jonah was in
the belly of the fish
three days and three nights....
I cried out to the LORD
because of my affliction
And He
answered me.
Jonah 1:17; 2:1b
It is when we forget that God is Sovereign; that it is He who controls all things that He has created; that we choose other reasons for what happens upon this earth and upon our own lives. God listens to our cries for help; God is ready, able, and at times to do exactly what we ask; at times we wonder why? Why has He not done as we have asked? It is then, in those times that we cause to come to mind: God is Sovereign, God is Good, and God does exactly what is needed to complete His purpose, His Will. Jonah gives us an answer: "But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and cry mightily to God; yes, let everyone turn from his evil way and from the violence that is in his hands. Who can tell if God will turn away from His fierce anger, so that we many not perish? Then God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God relented from the disaster that He had said He would bring upon them, and He did not do it" (Jonah 3:8-10). We can't tell whether God will remove from us chastisement from Him, but what we can do is turn from our evil ways, this is the work that pleases Him, this is the work that the Ninevites did, and this pleased Him. The word violence is an English word and it is a good word only that it doesn't quite display its full meaning; violence can be just that, a violent act, yet, the word in Hebrew has a greater meaning as it has a meaning of the corruption of the divinely established order of things. (See Strong's Concordance; #2555). God has established a certain order of things, that for man to keep and live in: "You shall not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the children of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself; I am the Lord" (Leviticus 19:18). Jesus enlarged this established order of things by saying: "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). These laws are the greatest of all laws and we as children of God are expected to keep them and when we fail we do as Jonah did, we fall down upon our knees, prostrate before a Holy and Just God, lay all before Him and rely upon Him to do for us all that is right and just, and as Charles Stanley, a Southern Baptist preacher so ofter quotes: "Be obedient and leave the consequences to God."
Often in our thinking we separate those words from Jesus with great optimism and then we think differently about the physical laws, those laws we call: Law of Nature. Yes that term, Law of Nature, is somewhat ambiguous and is often used in general senses. It either means: an observed regular sequence of events, without any reference to the cause by which that regularity of sequence is determined; or we give it a sense that it means a uniform acting force in nature; in other words, this is the sense that we speak of such laws as gravity, light, heat, electricity, etc. I wrote on the problem that is so apparent in such theories of Pantheism, Idealism, and Agnostics, that make all things to be a fact of only a First Cause and there is not second cause, so that physical laws are compounded into God and God alone. These physical laws are not to be resolved into being the uniform modes of divine operation, Scriptures never speaks of God in this manner. Yes! He does control and influence maintaining all that He has created, but the cause of things are not to be assigned only to Him. He has created laws, both Spiritual and Natural, and we are, to obey those laws, but we are not to assign them only to Him leaving us out of the equation, nor the fact that natural laws are in some way independent of Him as those laws carry out His will for His creation. That being said there is still the question that needs to be answered because as was stated God for Jonah prepared a great fish, so then, How does God stand to those laws?
Often in our thinking we separate those words from Jesus with great optimism and then we think differently about the physical laws, those laws we call: Law of Nature. Yes that term, Law of Nature, is somewhat ambiguous and is often used in general senses. It either means: an observed regular sequence of events, without any reference to the cause by which that regularity of sequence is determined; or we give it a sense that it means a uniform acting force in nature; in other words, this is the sense that we speak of such laws as gravity, light, heat, electricity, etc. I wrote on the problem that is so apparent in such theories of Pantheism, Idealism, and Agnostics, that make all things to be a fact of only a First Cause and there is not second cause, so that physical laws are compounded into God and God alone. These physical laws are not to be resolved into being the uniform modes of divine operation, Scriptures never speaks of God in this manner. Yes! He does control and influence maintaining all that He has created, but the cause of things are not to be assigned only to Him. He has created laws, both Spiritual and Natural, and we are, to obey those laws, but we are not to assign them only to Him leaving us out of the equation, nor the fact that natural laws are in some way independent of Him as those laws carry out His will for His creation. That being said there is still the question that needs to be answered because as was stated God for Jonah prepared a great fish, so then, How does God stand to those laws?
Here is the answer to that question, as drawn from the Bible: First, He is their author. God created all that there is and He endowed matter with these forces, and ordained that they should be uniform. That fact that God ordained uniformity should bring to us great humiliation for if the Laws of Nature were not orderly and uniform, just think, what confusion would exist, how then could we have things such as science, leading us to a greater knowledge of what God has created bringing to us a better life, i.e., medicine, equipment, etc.? Ordination does not make Him to be the cause of second causes, only that nothing acts without His Will, His will being the cause of ordination. Secondly, He is then, independent of them. Therefore, He can change them, He could if He so desired to annihilate, or suspend them at His pleasure. He can operate with them or without them. The so-called "Reign of Law" must not be made to extend over Him who made the laws. Thirdly, As was stated above there is stability in uniformity and it is this stability within the laws of nature, and even over His creatures, that depend on this uniformity, the uniformity of the Laws of Nature. God never disregards them except for the accomplishment of His Will and purpose, a higher purpose that was set in motion when He created all things and in the ordinary operations of those laws it is His Providence to operate with and through those laws which He has ordained. He then, governs the material, as well as the moral world by law.
In the next blog I will cover this relationship of God with the Laws of Nature for there is more to be said in regard to this relationship and how it applies to us as men. As Jonah found out, God is Sovereign, and God is Providential, and God demands from His people that they follow and keep His laws, both the natural and physical laws, and even more so those moral laws. It is when we do not keep those moral laws that we cause much confusion and we are in affect doing that which is in opposition to that which God established, we are doing violence to the word of God that stands as our witness as to what God expects. May we employ His laws, both the Laws of Nature and His moral laws in our lives.
To whom shall I speak
and give warning,
that they may hear?
Indeed their ear is
uncircumcised. And they
cannot give heed.
Behold, the word of the LORD
is a reproach to them:
they have no delight in it.
Jeremiah 6:10
May We Live What God Has Set Before Us
Richard L. Crumb
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