THE ENEMY'S WORK
July, 1881

By W. I. G.

Do not err, my beloved brethren. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with Whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. – James 1:16, 17.

Is it true that God does all things? If God is the author of all things – and this fact is fully fixed in our minds – then how can we be disturbed at any of the events of life, however painful or afflictive they may be? If this be true, every event should be a cause of earnest thanksgiving and praise to God.

But let us pause a moment and ask the question, “Is God the author of all things?” In answer to this let His own words be heard in the case of the woman who had been bowed together “lo, these eighteen years.” (Luke 13:16) Whom He says, Satan hath bound.” Had you been permitted to call at this woman’s home before she was healed, you would doubtless have heard her friends, in their sympathy, encouraging her to bear with fortitude her affliction as being sent from God.

Let us be entirely sure that our afflictions are from God before we say, “Let us bear them patiently and not ask to have them removed.” Had this woman ascribed her affliction to God for these long, eighteen years, she would most clearly have been ascribing to Him that which He most clearly denies. Again, in the parable where the tares are represented as appearing among the wheat, our Saviour says, “An enemy hath done this” Matthew 13:28.

The Word very clearly set forth that God is not the author of our temptations, but that “every good gift and every perfect gift” is from Him. In James 1:13, 14, we read, “Let no man say that he is tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth He any man, but every man is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lust and enticed.” Sin is the great cause of misery, and Christ came to “destroy the works of the Devil” 1 John 3:8. We may, therefore, come to God with the greater confidence for deliverance when we realize that He is not the author of our afflictions, but that “an enemy hath done this.”

But you say, “He permits suffering.” Yes, He permits it until we are willing to trust Him for the deliverance which He has already provided for us. He also permits sin to exist in the world, but He is not the author of sin. I should be very unwilling to charge God with being the author of all the wickedness and confusion which we find in this world, then why ascribe to Him all our sicknesses and afflictions when He so plainly teaches us that “an enemy hath done this”?

The question may arise, “Does not God approve of these afflictions?” The fact of their existence does not prove God’s approbation of them, any more than the fact of the existence of sin proves His approbation of that. The adversary would gladly charge God with being the author of this world’s misery.

Let us rather realize that sickness and suffering are but the withering, blighting touch of the Devil, and this will lead us to flee to the Savior for aid, flee to His loving embrace, and ask and trust Him to fulfill in us the redemptive plan already provided for soul and body.

The provisions are abundant, and the terms are but to ask and receive, “that the Father may be glorified in the Son.”