Curbing Rebellion against God's Deep Ways

10 MARCH

O LORD, how great are Thy works! and Thy thoughts are very deep. Psalm 92:5

SUGGESTED FURTHER READING: Romans 11:33-36

God governs the world in a manner that we are often unable to comprehend. Were things under our own management, we would invert the order that God observes. Since that is not the case, we may perversely argue with God for not hastening sooner to help the righteous and to punish the wicked. 

It strikes us in the highest degree inconsistent with the perfections of God that He should bear the wicked when they rage against Him, when they rush without restraint into the most daring acts of iniquity, and when they persecute at will the good and the innocent. It seems intolerable to us that God should subject His own people to the injustice and violence of the wicked while failing to check abounding falsehood, deceit, plunder, bloodshed, and every species of enormity. Why does He suffer His truth to be obscured and His holy name to be trampled under foot? Such is the greatness of the divine operation and the depth of divine counsel that cause the psalmist to break forth in admiration.

It is no doubt true that God has displayed incomprehensible depth of power and wisdom in the fabric of the universe; but what the psalmist especially has in view here is to check our tendency to murmur against God when He does not pursue our plan in His providential management. When His ways do not agree with the general ideas of men, we ought to contemplate them with reverence, remembering that God, to better try our obedience, has lifted His deep and mysterious judgments far above our conceptions.

John Calvin

FOR MEDITATIONS: How easily our hearts rise up in rebellion and unbelief when God does not act as we think He should! This psalm is a wonderful corrective to that spirit. What steps can we take to remind ourselves who is Creator and who is creature when we contemplate God's ways in the world?

365 Days With Calvin

Selected and Edited by Joel R. Beeke

Rebellious Clay

22 January

So Joshua smote all the country of the hills, and of the south, and of the vale, and of the springs, and all their kings: he left none remaining, but utterly destroyed all that breathed, as the LORD God of Israel commanded. Joshua 10:40

SUGGESTED FURTHER READING: Job 40:1-14

Divine authority is again interposed in the text to acquit Joshua of any charge of cruelty. Since God had destined the swords of His people for the slaughter of the Amorites, Joshua could do nothing but obey His command. By such a decree all mouths are stopped and all minds restrained from passing censure.

When reading that Joshua slew all who came his way, even though they threw down their arms and begged for mercy, we may be disturbed, but when we read further that God had commanded Joshua to do so, we have no ground for pronouncing sentence on Joshua anymore than we do against those who pronounce sentence on criminals.

We might also think the children and the women that Joshua slew were without blame. If so, let us remember that the judgment seat of heaven is not subject to our laws. Rather, when we see how green plants are burned in the judgment, let us who are dry wood fear a heavier judgment for ourselves. Certainly, any person who thoroughly examines himself will find that he deserves a hundred deaths. Why then should not the Lord find grounds for the death of an infant that has only passed from its mother’s womb? In vain should we murmur or complain that God has doomed all the offspring of an accursed race to the same destruction, for the potter has absolute power over his own vessels and over his own clay.

John Calvin

FOR MEDITATION: Passages like this selection from Joshua often incite rebellion in our hearts. Like Job, we must learn to put our hands over our mouths and humble ourselves before Almighty God, knowing that He who created all creatures also will determine, sovereignly and justly, what is right for them.

365 Days With Calvin

Selected and Edited by Joel R. Beeke