Thur Inspiration

Morning Inspiration with Pastor Merritt

We know that God could prevent trouble from ever coming to all of us if He chose to. If God is sovereign – that means nothing happens unless God causes it and God allows it. All God has to do is to say for every one of us who become one of his followers, “Don’t ever worry I will never allow any bad thing to happen to you.” Furthermore, we know the Bible is full of stories of how God did exactly that.

Daniel was still in the lion’s den, but God gave the lions lock-jaw and spared his life. Three Hebrew men, Shadrach, Meshach and Abedigo, were thrown into a fiery furnace, but not even a hair of their head was singed and they walked out without even the smell of smoke on their clothes. In the book of Acts, we are told about how Paul was bitten by a poisonous viper, but just shook the snake off into the fire and didn’t even get a headache. We all remember the story of how David, basically, was about to commit suicide as a young boy fighting a giant almost ten feet tall, yet he made Sylvester Stallone proud by doing his best Rocky imitation and took him down with a sling-shot and a rock. The Bible is full of stories of how God protected His people from death, disease, and disaster.

That is where the rub comes in, because if God can keep bad things from happening to any good person, why doesn’t God keep bad things from happening to every good person? If God could keep something bad from happening to me any of the time, why doesn’t God keep bad things from happening to me all of the time?

Here is an illustration. In Acts chapter 12 we are told that James, one of the disciples and the brother of John, was thrown into prison and Herod cut him in half with a sword. Four chapters later, in Acts 16, we are told that Paul and Silas were miraculously delivered from prison. Three men went to jail, one man went to the executioners block, and two men went to Disneyworld!

Here is another example. In Genesis, the first book of the Old Testament, we are told that a young man named Joseph was thrown into prison, but God miraculously delivered him out of that prison and made him the Prime Minister of Egypt. Yet in Matthew, the first book in the New Testament, John the Baptist was thrown into prison and part of him was delivered…his head was delivered on a silver platter. Why is it that God will deliver this person, but not that one? Why does God heal this person, but lets this person die?

Therein lies a great lesson that we must all remember or else this problem really will drive you to jump off a cliff. God’s principles and promises are the same for every believer, but His plans and purposes may be entirely different.