“The LORD trieth the righteous: but
the wicked and him that loveth violence his soul hateth.” (Ps 11:5
AV)
One
would wonder why the LORD has to try the righteous. If a person is righteous, what needs to be
tried? The word for ‘…trieth…’ means, to
examine, try, prove, scrutinize, to test, prove, try.” When compared against the wicked, one might
think the wicked need to be tried. The righteous
can be left alone. However, there is a
distinction here that needs to be made. The
LORD tries the righteous, but the wicked He judges. By implication, the motive for this ‘trying’
is love. We assume this because of the
emotional response God has towards the wicked.
He hates them. Just a side note,
God loves the wicked enough to sacrifice His Son for their soul. So, study what the word ‘hate’ means as it
pertains to the use of the word in the Bible.
The word does not mean the LORD cannot love the wicked enough to save
them. But let us return to the matter at
hand. God tries the righteous and His
motive is love. Or, the opposite of
hate.
Job
is our best example here. Job was a man who
feared God and hated evil. He was a
righteous man if there ever was one. In
fact, I’ll go out on a limb and say Job was the most naturally righteous man
that ever lived. Yet, the LORD saw fit
to try him. Job struggled because he
believed righteousness meant the absence of trying times. He believed his righteousness earned him a
life that was free from the deep troubles others may experience. He believed that troubles were only a result
of sin and since he was a man who loved and lived righteousness, he shouldn’t be
experiencing the hardships revealed in the book that bears his name. The thing is, God loved Job enough to require
he suffer at the hands of his adversary.
This may sound strange, but the truth is, God loves us too much to let
us live in the status quo. He desires
that we mature.
This
whole business of the COVID-19 virus has even the elect acting a bit squirrely. No one wants to get ill. Especially when we consider the symptoms. In 2009, the LORD saw fit to allow me to
contract the swine flu. It hit on the
weekend I was to move to a new ministry and state. The day we were packing out, I was in my
office chair with a blanket over me, watching out a window as others packed the
truck. I couldn’t move. Literally.
I was so sick I couldn’t walk twenty feet to the bathroom. If that was the H1N1 virus, I certainly do
not wish to come down with the Wuhan Flu.
The thing is, I can take as many precautions as I can prudently
take. I spend all but about an hour a
day in my house. The hour that I do
spend is mostly outside with my dog. Almost
always in my front yard. There might be another
hour per week shopping, but other than that and live-streaming our services, I
am around no one. When we do go out
shopping we practice social distancing and wear face masks. However, if the LORD saw fit to ask me to
suffer from the COVID-19 virus, there is nothing I can do about it. It would be the LORD trying the
righteous. There would be areas of my
life that need to be cleaned up or a lack of faith that needs to be challenged. The LORD simply loves us too much to allow us
to stay as we are. We can always be a
little bit more like Christ.
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