By Don Stuart, Community Bible Church
www.communitybible.2b4.com

Psalm 54:7, “For He has delivered me from all trouble; And my eye has looked with satisfaction upon my enemies.”

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

This morning I was looking at Psalm 54, and particularly verse 7, in my devotions, and an idea came to me I thought I’d share with you.

The context of the Psalm is that David was in trouble from his enemies.  He asked God to protect him and, in vs. 7, he ended his psalm by praising and thanking the Lord for delivering him from all trouble.

That got me thinking that troublesome events, situations, and circumstances still came David’s way, but every event/situation/circumstance could only get to David through one of two “gates”... and also, that only one of those gates could permit truly harmful events to enter.

The first gate is the Lord’s direct, perfect will.  And we know some things about any event/circumstance that God allows through this Gate:

1.  It will work together with all the other events to make us more like Christ.  Rom 8.28-29.

2.  If it is a testing/temptation, we will be able to say “no” to it and bear up under it.  1 Cor 10.13.

I conclude that anything that comes to us through this first gate will always be directly beneficial to our walk with the Lord and our usefulness to Him.

The second gate is our own will; that is, the events that happen, or the situations/circumstances we find ourselves in resulting from decisions we make when we am being “willful”, when we am following our own, fleshly ideas and desires rather than God’s.  When we do this we am taking ourselves outside God’s direct protective “sphere”, and things can enter our experience which wouldn’t be allowed in through the first gate.  Here’s my opinion about these “second gate” things:

1.  Rom 8.28-29 still works, but sometimes indirectly.  God will still cause all things to work together to make us into the image of His Son... but the road may take longer, it may be more painful, it may consume more of our life in activities unproductive to the Kingdom of God, and it will inhibit the pace of the development of our personal relationship with Christ (which may only reach maturity when we am taken to Heaven).  In other words, if we were to become a 1 Cor 3.15 sort of person we would still end up in Heaven, and then we would indeed by like Christ, and God would be glorified by how He graciously saved us... but our life on earth may have been wasted in the process.

2.  Harmful things can get to us through this gate, if we permit them.  Though God can and will forgive us for such sinful decisions, and use us to His glory afterwards, there may be some residual after effects which we may have to endure from then on.  For example, God commands me to not do foolish things.  If I open that second gate and decide to get out my pistol and play Russian roulette with my foot, the game may be interesting and exciting for a while, but there is likely to come a time when I put a bullet through my foot.  Knowing myself, at that point I’m likely to become reflective about the “merits” of the game I’ve been playing, and I may come to my senses and confess and repent... and the Lord will forgive me and cleanse me from the unrighteousness (1 Jn 1.9).  Here’s the rub as I see it... God is not obligated to repair my foot.  Whereas His direct will may have been for me to have two good feet my entire life, now I may have to go on serving Him with one good foot and one bad one.  Though this is sort of a far-fetched example, real-life examples could include saints serving God with reduced health as a result of former drug use, saints serving God in prison, men who have a tougher time maintaining the purity of their thought-life due to exposing themselves to pornographic images in the past, etc.

So I thank God that He has so arranged it for us, His children, that nothing “out there” can get to us by its will.  It must enter through one of the two gates, one which is under the Lord’s control, and one which is under mine.  If I’m smart, I’ll keep my gate closed and locked and throw away the key.

Just some thoughts.  Hope they are a blessing to you.

Don

Don Stuart
dstuart@vsrd.com

Don,

What a wonderful meditation.  Was recently in Psalms meditating on 55.17 and 56:3.  Your analogy is so true, there is an article by Ray Steadman called the scars of sin which is on much the same subject. (See Children: 102 Scars of Sin for the full article.

Regards,
Mark