God’s Permissive Will – 2

COME with me to another scene, even to Calvary, for the greatest example of the truth here discussed. See there, hanging upon the Cross of Calvary, the Creator of the universe, sinless, spotless, impeccable. There is pity upon His face and the love of God streaming from His whole being as He hangs there in agony and in blood. His hands and His feet are pierced with cruel nails, his brow with the crown of thorns. His eyes are bloodshot and red, full of agony and pain. His pale, thin lips are pinched with the awful pain of the Cross. Every muscle in His body is tense as the blood oozes from His broken skin. He cries out in His agony to Almighty God, while the angry mob of rebels and bloodthirsty criminals around are demanding His death and are gloating over the death of the sinless Son of God. How in the name of heaven, we ask, can God be up there and see a sight like that, and still keep silence. Why does He not send fire from heaven and plunge these murderers of His Son into an eternal hell forever? Why does He not damn them all? It would have been absolutely just; it would have been righteous for God to do so.

We stand there and cry out, “Oh, God, do something.” Instead of doing something, however, God permits these criminals to go right ahead, to crucify His precious Son, until He cries out, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken Me?” Instead of helping Him, God turns His back, closes His eyes, blows out the sun, pulls down the curtains of heaven, and allows His Son to suffer innocently and alone, at the hands of these criminals. I hardly know what to say when I realize that God permitted these sinners to kill His Son, in order that by the very death and the murder of His Son He might provide the only way to save the ones who murdered Him. Now that is something to marvel at. He allowed His Son to be murdered because it was the only way that He could save the murderers of His Son.

If God felt that way with Joseph, and with Christ, I think we can understand why He permits things to come into our lives also. Man wants to understand and to reason; he does not want to believe; but when I go to Calvary and stand there and see the Son of God dying in agony and in blood to save me, a good-for-nothing, hell-deserving, rotten, filthy sinner, and to make me a child of God, I ask for no other argument; I ask for no other proof; that is enough for me.

Adapted and Excerpts from Studies in the Life of Abraham by M. R. De Haan (1891-1964)
Unless otherwise noted, Scripture taken from the New King James Version®, NKJV © 1982 by Thomas Nelson.
Used by permission. All rights reserved.