Moving into part 2, lets start with Deuteronomy 28.
Deuteronomy 28 lists the blessings and curses that would come upon the Israelites depending on their obedience or disobedience to God’s commands. As you study this well known chapter of Deuteronomy you’ll notice the things listed there as curses. Sickness, poverty, grief, and many more problems. These are curses, not blessings.
Many religious people today try to make them out to be other than curses. Even categorizing them as lessons or blessings. They’ll say something like “God gave me this cancer to teach me something”. Or, “I got this sickness from God, but it really was a blessing in disguise, because it made me turn to the Lord for help.” Hey!!!! Listen up. It’s not a blessing; it’s a curse. God didn’t put that cancer on you. God cannot give you an illness. If He did then there would be division in heaven, because Jesus came with healing in His wings. Jesus came to heal the broken hearted. Jesus went about healing all who were sick.
Graham Cooke says “The whole point of a trial is to give you something, not to take anything away from you. It is to advance you. It is to add something to you. That is why you should be joyful because God allows in His wisdom what He could easily prevent by His power”. Said another way, God is omniscient, which means He’s all knowing. He knows those trials and tribulations that will befall each of us.
Jesus even said so. He said in John 16:33 that we would have tribulation in this world. Now He wasn’t prophesying that. He was stating what He knew, because He’s already been to the end of each of our lives. So, God already knows the events, both good and bad, that will come into our lives. He could have prevented everyone of the bad things from happening. Yet, He chose to provide us with free choice and set up His Kingdom for us to rule on this earth. Also, He saw in the trials by His great wisdom opportunity to bring good out of the bad. We’ll discuss Romans 8:28 shortly.
God never uses evil to correct or draw us to Him. Romans 2:4 says it’s the goodness of God that leads us to repentance. Second Timothy 3:16 says that God’s Word—not problems—is given to correct and reprove us. Afflictions are what Satan uses to steal away God’s Word (Mark 4:16-17).
So here comes the ya but ministry team saying “But don’t all things work together for good?” No! That’s not what scripture says. That’s another sacred cow. Look at Paul’s actual statement in Romans 8:28:
“And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.”
Scripture taken out of context has a totally different meaning. That verse says something totally different from what religion has taught us. Remember when God told Adam in Genesis 2:16,17. He said “Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it…” But look at what the devil said to Eve about that. He took it out of context and changed it. He said “Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?” God did not say they shall not eat of every tree. He said they could eat of every tree except the one tree. God speaks and declares in the positive, but the enemy suggests in the negative.
This is what happens when religion takes scripture out of context and tries to form it to their experience or understanding. Religion will attempt to lower the truth of scripture to their faith or experience rather than fighting to increase their faith to the level of scripture. They wrestle scripture to fit their opinions or wrong teachings about what Jesus said, rather than just finding out the truth of what Jesus said.
In this verse 28 of Romans 8 there are qualifications that most people ignore. The first is to love God. Does everybody love God? No. Do all who are born again truly love God? No. The next part says you must be called according to His purpose. What is His purpose? First John 3:8 says that the purpose of Jesus’ coming was to destroy the works of the devil. So, if you are functioning according to the purpose of Jesus, you should be out to destroy the works of the devil.
Therefore, this passage of Scripture applies to people who are not passive, but they are interceding and letting the Holy Spirit supernaturally energize and take intercession to a level where it’s not just human. That eliminates the majority of people right there. Add loving God to that and resisting and destroying the works of the devil, and you can see how that scripture has been misunderstood and misused.
Okay, but how come things turn out bad for me sometimes? How come I got a broken arm? How come I lost money on a deal I was making? Because you have choice. That’s the one thing God allows. He allows you to have free choice in your everyday lives. He will not take your right to choose away from you. He will always allow you to choose.
What happened when you broke your arm? What were you doing? Playing tackle football with no pads, against some young tough kids. Your choice. Walking on an icy road without overshoes or non-slip shoes. Your choice. You see, it wasn’t God allowing the devil to break your arm. It was God allowing you to choose to play football, or walk on an icy road and consequently you received a broken arm. That doesn’t mean you should quit playing football, or walking on an icy road, but it’s your choice, not God making the choice to stop you. So choose wisely.
What kind of deal were you trying to get into to make money? Was it too good to be true? Did you know the people? Your choice. Now God can win with any hand and can turn the situation to good, even in the midst of the disaster.
Deuteronomy 30:19 says,
“I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live.”
Look at that verse. If that’s not choice, I don’t know what is. In addition, God gives you multiple choice and then tells you which choice to pick. How good is that. The problem with most Christians is they don’t know how to handle free choice. So instead they try to say we don’t have a choice. That’s a cop out. It simply means they are not willing to take personal responsibility for their situations.
If you still believe God controls everything and you really do not have any choice, then why do anything? Why pray? Why study the Word? Why resist?
James 4:7 says, “Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.”
Now if you believe God controls everything, you better not obey this verse, because if you do, your violating what you think is the nature and will of God. If God controls everything and you believe He gave you or allowed that sickness to come on you, don’t you dare go to a Dr. because your violating the will of God.
Do you see how ridiculous that belief standard is? Let me say it again. God does not control everything. I didn’t say God was not in control of everything. I said God does not control everything.
Even when God allows us choice and He knows bad things will happen, He has not given up control. It’s the bigger picture. It’s the finished product, like a house. Not each board, each nail, each panel of drywall, or each paint application, but the finished product. The neat thing is that God is the master architect with the main blueprint. He sees the finished product, even knowing the challenges along the way.
So when the builders encounter a problem during the construction phase, they go back to the architect for solutions. Applying my contracting knowledge concerning architects, I can tell you they have two purposes in constructing a product. The first is called Title 1 which is the design phase. The second, yep you guessed it, is called Title 2 which is the inspection phase. In other words, who better to inspect and ensure the final product than the one who created the original design.
Religion has played into the victim mentality because it’s the easiest way to explain away failure. The church has not been effective in helping people overcome things like sickness and financial problems, so they fall into the sacred cow belief that God is allowing this for a reason. God is sovereign so it is what it is. It’s time to embrace the truth and quit believing the false teachings, which are “Making the word of God of none effect through your tradition.”
God isn’t allowing the bad things in your life. The same power that raised Christ from the dead lives on the inside of every believer, and He is waiting on you to resist the devil and appropriate what He has already provided through Jesus.
The way we make the Word of God of None Effect is to believe the false teaching concerning God and His sovereignty. It is not God who allows anything to happen in your life, it’s your choice. It is also not God’s to do regarding fixing the poor choices in your life, because He’s already done His part, now it’s time for you to step into the provision that has already been provided. Watch for the next blog titled "It's Not God's To Do". Grace and Peace.
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