To the Man Who Blames God – Sunday, March 02, 1941
Under the tension of such times as ours, men react in many different ways to the disturbing events that beset their lives. What some do is that which one of the advisers of Job urged him to do—to “curse God” (Job 2:0) and lay at the door of the Almighty the blame for every calamity.
In doing this, of course, such as they fail to understand that our Eternal Father does not minutely regulate every detail of our lives any more that our earthly parents dictate everything we shall do. They teach us what we ought to do, in spite of which, in the headstrong use of our own freedom and in the exercise of our own will, we still manage to get ourselves into a good deal of trouble.
Just so does the Lord God lay down principles and commandments for the government of men, fixing penalties for disobedience and rewards for obedience, and men, collectively speaking, do as they please, and take the consequences. There is yet another class of people who become evident in times of stress and sorrow. They don’t trouble themselves to curse God. They deny His very existence. They say, loudly and often, if there were a God He wouldn’t permit these things to happen. The answer to them is fundamentally the same as it was to those who curse Him. In order that men may grow, it is part of the plan of life that they shall make their own choices and decisions, and so, if widespread and general calamities come, it is because men, collectively, have so conducted themselves as to invite them to come.
There is yet another class of us mortals who call upon God for help, but who impose such limitations upon Him that it would seem to be an illogical act—this asking for help from a God who is reluctantly conceded once to have intervened in the affairs of men, but who, in our day, is sealed in the heavens, neither to act nor to speak nor to communicate with us. It is difficult to expect help from God if, in our own minds, we have stripped Him of power and substance and form and personality. Thus it becomes apparent why some men have lost confidence in the power of prayer.
Finally, and fortunately for the world, there are those who believe that there is a God in Heaven, who is the maker and administrator of eternal law, the Father of our spirits, whose children we are, in whose image we were made, whose help we may receive and whose counsel and protection we may still have, even in this, the twentieth century, in accordance with our faith and believe and obedience. It was this God to whom Jesus the Christ prayed when He said: “Our Father who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name”—and He is no less able to act and speak in the affairs of men now that He was in those generations which have gone before, of which we have scriptural record. This much we say to those who blame God, to those who deny Him, and to those who would exclude Him from the affairs of men.
March 02, 1941
Broadcast Number 0,602