Tag: create darkness

4.s. For affliction does not come from the earth

Job 5:1  “Call now; is there anyone who will answer you? To which of the holy ones will you turn? Surely vexation kills the fool, and jealousy slays the simple. I have seen the fool taking root, but suddenly I cursed his dwelling. His children are far from safety; they are crushed in the gate, and there is no one to deliver them. The hungry eat his harvest, and he takes it even out of thorns, and the thirsty pant after his wealth. For affliction does not come from the dust, nor does trouble sprout from the ground, but man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward.

Isaiah 45:7   I form light and create darkness; I make well-being and create calamity; I am the LORD, who does all these things.

Lamentations 3:38    Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that good and bad come?

Matthew Henry;  Eliphaz here calls upon Job to answer his arguments. Were any of the saints or servants of God visited with such Divine judgments as Job, or did they ever behave like him under their sufferings? The term, saints, holy, or more strictly, consecrated ones, seems in all ages to have been applied to the people of God, through the Sacrifice slain in the covenant of their reconciliation. Eliphaz doubts not that the sin of sinners directly tends to their ruin. They kill themselves by some lust or other; therefore, no doubt, Job has done some foolish thing, by which he has brought himself into this condition. The allusion was plain to Job’s former prosperity, but there was no evidence of Job’s wickedness, and the application to him was unfair and severe.

2.r. I form light and create darkness; I make well-being and create calamity; I am the LORD, who does all these things.

2 Chronicles 21:16  And the Lord stirred up against Jehoram the anger of the Philistines and of the Arabians who are near the Ethiopians. And they came up against Judah and invaded it and carried away all the possessions they found that belonged to the king’s house, and also his sons and his wives, so that no son was left to him except Jehoahaz, his youngest son.

And after all this the Lord struck him in his bowels with an incurable disease. In the course of time, at the end of two years, his bowels came out because of the disease, and he died in great agony. His people made no fire in his honor, like the fires made for his fathers. He was thirty-two years old when he began to reign, and he reigned eight years in Jerusalem. And he departed with no one’s regret. They buried him in the city of David, but not in the tombs of the kings.

1 Kings 11:11    Therefore the LORD said to Solomon, “Since this has been your practice and you have not kept my covenant and my statutes that I have commanded you, I will surely tear the kingdom from you and will give it to your servant.

1 Kings 11:14    And the LORD raised up an adversary against Solomon,

1 Kings 11:23     God also raised up as an adversary to him,

Ezra 1:5    Then rose up the heads of the fathers’ houses of Judah and Benjamin, and the priests and the Levites, everyone whose spirit God had stirred to go up to rebuild the house of the LORD that is in Jerusalem.

Isaiah 10:5-6     Woe to Assyria, the rod of my anger; the staff in their hands is my fury!  Against a godless nation I send him, and against the people of my wrath I command him, to take spoil and seize plunder, and to tread them down like the mire of the street

Amos 3:6     Is a trumpet blown in a city, and the people are not afraid? Does disaster come to a city, unless the LORD has done it?

Isaiah 45:5-7     I am the LORD, and there is no other, besides me there is no God; I equip you, though you do not know me,  that people may know, from the rising of the sun and from the west, that there is none besides me; I am the LORD, and there is no other.  I form light and create darkness; I make well-being and create calamity; I am the LORD, who does all these things.

Do you ever wonder what God is not in control of?  Is He in control of everything?  We see “the Lord stirred up against Jehoram,”  “I will tear the kingdom from you”, “the Lord raised up an adversary”, “everyone whose spirit God had stirred”, “the staff in their hands is My fury”, “Does disaster come to a city, unless the Lord has done it?”, and “I make well-being and create calamity, I am the Lord who does all these things.”

God uses both the godly and ungodly too manifest is plans and purposes.  He is the creator of all there is so it is well understood that He can control it.  Do we live our lives like God is in control?  Do we pray like God is in Control?  Do we trust God like He is in control?  People reject God’s calling in their life.  They choose to ignore Him.  However, even in their rejection and the problems and troubles, they cause on others God can and does use it for good.  We may not see it but we can trust it is true.  One example is with the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.  Evil and lost people did this but it was ordained by God for the salvation of all who believe.

We know how David cried out to God and stating what appeared to be an oversight by God, in that, there were evil people who seemed to prosper, denounce God, treat others with harm, and God was seemingly blind to it.  He wasn’t and isn’t blind to actions, but more than that, He knows the thoughts and intents of each person’s actions.

The problem we have is that we don’t have the wisdom, understanding, and knowledge of God.  We chase after answers with our limited understanding and knowledge.  We convince ourselves that we no best and if we were God we would do it differently.  He is God, not us.  His ways are not our ways.

So why is it that we say God is in control and then do not believe or trust Him when seemingly bad things happen?  He does not change.  He has been the same forever and there is no changing in Him.

I think the closer we are to Him the more we learn and grow in our trusting of Him.  The closer we are we have fewer questions and we have more praise.  The closer we are doesn’t mean we have fewer questions but it does mean we have one answer “God is in control” and in this, we can find a peace that passes all understanding.

You have to imagine the Israelites were full of questions and afraid when they were at the banks of the Red Sea with the Pharaoh and his warriors approaching. When we face the impossible, tragic, and terrible, trials in our life, know that there is a God who is in control and will work out all things for the good of them who are called by His name.

1a. Send them out of my sight, and let them go! 

2 Kings 24:3  Surely this came upon Judah at the command of the Lord, to remove them out of his sight, for the sins of Manasseh, according to all that he had done, and also for the innocent blood that he had shed. For he filled Jerusalem with innocent blood, and the Lord would not pardon

Psalms 106:38    they poured out innocent blood, the blood of their sons and daughters, whom they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan, and the land was polluted with blood.

Isaiah 10:5-6     Woe to Assyria, the rod of my anger; the staff in their hands is my fury!  Against a godless nation I send him, and against the people of my wrath I command him, to take spoil and seize plunder, and to tread them down like the mire of the streets.

Isaiah 45:7    I form light and create darkness; I make well-being and create calamity; I am the LORD, who does all these things.

Exodus 20:5   You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the LORD your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me,

Joshua 23:15     But just as all the good things that the LORD your God promised concerning you have been fulfilled for you, so the LORD will bring upon you all the evil things, until he has destroyed you from off this good land that the LORD your God has given you,

Jeremiah 15:1-4    Then the LORD said to me, “Though Moses and Samuel stood before me, yet my heart would not turn toward this people. Send them out of my sight, and let them go!  And when they ask you, ‘Where shall we go?’ you shall say to them, ‘Thus says the LORD: “‘Those who are for pestilence, to pestilence, and those who are for the sword, to the sword; those who are for famine, to famine, and those who are for captivity, to captivity.’  I will appoint over them four kinds of destroyers, declares the LORD: the sword to kill, the dogs to tear, and the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth to devour and destroy.  And I will make them a horror to all the kingdoms of the earth because of what Manasseh the son of Hezekiah, king of Judah, did in Jerusalem.

I wonder if we see the depth of the verses “for the innocent blood that he shed”, “they poured out innocent blood, the blood of their sons and daughters”.  When you look at abortion, is it not innocent blood that is being sacrificed for whatever reason imaginable under the sun.  There are roughly 650,000 abortions reported to the CDC each year in the United States.  That is over 1800 living babies that are destroyed/killed/murdered each day of the year.  Are we not guilty of spilling innocent blood for the sake of convenience?  It is a sad day when we don’t speak out against this tragedy and allow it to continue.  The watered-down cowardly way people say “I do not support abortion, but I do support your right to choose” is nothing more than closing your eyes to the unborn and giving your approval to murder them.

We are a free nation with laws that allow murdering unborn children.  How long will it be before God brings judgment against us?  We call pornography – adult entertainment, pedophile – minor-attracted person, abortion-free choice, God is watered down to – some other higher power, and things that ought not to be done are called – progressive or alternative lifestyles.  This is nothing more than people doing all that their sinful nature wants them to do.  When do we take a stand and speak truth from the word of God about such wayward living?  When do we call on the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ to heal our land and rid us of these self-centered desires that keep quiet in the midst of the tragedy all around us. 

Give us ears to hear, eyes to see, courage to act, and strength to complete your purpose oh God.