BibleTools

Topical Studies

 A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z


What the Bible says about Curse Causeless shall not Come
(From Forerunner Commentary)

Daniel 9:5

It is interesting that he does not even say "the Ten Commandments." He starts out with what we might consider to be "the little things." Of course, we understand that the commandments are included within them. So he establishes, secondarily, that he understands, before God, the reasons why Judah went into captivity and was scattered. Please apply this to the church. This did not "just happen," as if there was no cause. "The curse causeless shall not come," Proverbs 26:2 says. We come under a curse because we have sinned.

John W. Ritenbaugh
Avoiding Superficiality

Amos 3:3

America calls itself a Christian nation. We have churches on every corner, Bibles in every house, Christian scripture and principles in our founding documents and on our governmental buildings, and the Ten Commandments on public monuments. We produce more Bibles and send more missionaries than any other nation on earth. We piously intone Christian principles in our politics and foreign policy. We even say public prayers before auto races! If we are so close to Him, God says, He must hold us more accountable than others.

Then, He asks a series of questions that are designed to get us to think in a cause-and-effect mode, that is, we are to think about why certain things occur. "Can two walk together, unless they are agreed?" (verse 3). The answer is obviously not. God wants us to place Him and ourselves as the "two," and we must remember that He just said that He must punish for sin. The conclusion must be that God is not walking with us because of our sins (see Isaiah 59:2-15)! There can be no agreement between a righteous God and a sinful nation.

Amos 3:4-5 contain four more cause-and-effect questions, but verse 6 applies specifically to our situation in America: "If a trumpet is blown in a city, will not the people be afraid? If there is calamity in a city, will not the LORD have done it?" God is forcing us to agree with His logic. Do not people fear when they are made aware of danger nearby? Yes, of course. In the same way, if a disaster strikes, is it not true that God had a hand in it? Yes, of course! Especially if it occurs amidst a people who claim to be so close to God.

Later, in Amos 4:6-12, God tells us that we have missed the meaning of all the disasters we have endured in recent years. Using famine, drought, crop failure, epidemics, and "natural" disasters as examples of divine wake-up calls, He says, "Yet you have not returned to Me" (verses 6, 8-11). For a people who know God, calamity is not haphazard! God allows it to happen to inspire repentance and revival of true worship.

Did the nation take the September 11 attacks as warnings to return to God, truth, and right living? Sadly, only a few heeded them. A Barna Research Group (BRG) poll released on September 3, 2002, showed that "an overwhelming majority [90%] admit that 9/11 has had no lasting impact on their religious beliefs." BRG president George Barna reached the proper conclusion: "The fact that we saw no lasting impact from the most significant act of war against our country on our own soil says something about the spiritual complacency of the American public."

Indeed, it does. There is only one solution to this, "Seek good and not evil, that you may live; so the LORD God of hosts will be with you" (Amos 5:6). Even if the rest of the nation will not heed, we can as individuals put ourselves back in pace with God.

Richard T. Ritenbaugh
September 11 One Year On

Luke 13:1-5

Jesus perceived their thoughts, and even though they did not directly ask a question, Luke says He "answered them." It suggests that He took their unstated assertion—that those who died must have been particularly sinful—and countered it with the truth. In both of His examples, Christ plainly says that those who died were not worse sinners. In both of the examples, He also redirects the focus back to the individual and the individual's relationship with God and away from the speculation about why it happened to those specific people.

Notice that Christ does not deny that sin was involved in some way. In fact, He clearly implies that sin was involved in the examples He gave, because both times He said to repent. Repentance is only necessary when there is sin.

Proverbs 26:2 says that the "curse causeless does not come." God has a cause, a reason, for the calamities He causes or allows. It is safe to say that the basic reason for a disaster is sin—somewhere. But we need to be careful about deciding which sin or whose sin was the cause. In Luke 13, Christ's response was to get his listeners' focus off the details of the immediate calamity and on to each listener's personal standing with God. The details that we should be concerned with are those of our own walk with God.

Mankind has a tremendous propensity to resolve problems in his mind by assigning blame. Once we have placed the blame, we can go about our lives without having to delve any deeper. However, because of our inclination toward self-centeredness, we frequently focus on the wrong things.

As an example, if one were to ask the average man on the street about the causes of September 11, 2001, the answer would probably be about Osama bin Laden, al Qaida, and/or Islamic terrorism. We have placed those events in a box and labeled it, "Not our fault." Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson found out quickly that America does not want to contemplate its own culpability, or its own sinfulness, as the reason God allowed that calamity. It is far easier to place the blame on terrorism than to think that God may have been displeased with us and the rampant immorality in this "Christian" nation.

Our human nature shies away from accepting blame. It is easier to wrap our minds around cataclysmic events if we can assign the blame far from ourselves.

Christ's response in Luke 13 teaches us not to get caught up in the sordid details of the tragedy, but to look to our own houses and our own standing before God. Just as September 11 should have been a wake-up call for the nation to check itself, any calamity should cause us to evaluate our own ways. Given that these events were allowed by God to get our attention, the conclusion is that our attention has been on the wrong things. Our attention has been drawn away from God, and so God allowed this jolt so that we might consider our ways and make sure we are, in fact, following Him.

Calamities, if properly responded to, should initiate an examination of our relationship with God. It should prompt us to gauge how clearly we see Him and help us to identify where we are falling short. Our response should not be one of finger-pointing or presuming that we know the sum of God's thoughts and have searched out all of His ways. Our response should be to evaluate our own houses and consider our own ways. It is only when we recognize our spiritual needs that we will take steps to have them filled (Matthew 5:6).

David C. Grabbe
March 12, 2005: One Year Later


 




The Berean: Daily Verse and Comment

The Berean: Daily Verse and Comment

Sign up for the Berean: Daily Verse and Comment, and have Biblical truth delivered to your inbox. This daily newsletter provides a starting point for personal study, and gives valuable insight into the verses that make up the Word of God. See what over 150,000 subscribers are already receiving each day.

Email Address:

   
Leave this field empty

We respect your privacy. Your email address will not be sold, distributed, rented, or in any way given out to a third party. We have nothing to sell. You may easily unsubscribe at any time.
 A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z
©Copyright 1992-2024 Church of the Great God.   Contact C.G.G. if you have questions or comments.
Share this on FacebookEmailPrinter version
Close
E-mail This Page