Landmark Baptist

Is there anything arbitrary about the weather or is it 100% the work of God? This may seem like a elementary or arcane question, but I believe it has monumental implications relative to our concept of and attitude toward God.

How would you respond to this essay about "The Fly" by Mark Twain? http://www.ratbags.com/rsoles/comment/twain02.htm

Mark Osgatharp
Wynne, Arkansas

To the first, I would say it is the work of God. God "maketh his sun to rise...and sendeth rain..." Jesus says He sends it. What believer would say He doesn't?

To the second, Twain's writing would take a lengthy response. Despite his sometimes common sense and usual wit, Twain was evidently an unbeliever who rejected God and His revelation. He did not understand God created all things, and for His pleasure they are and were created, or that "there is none that doeth good, no not one".

Most of Twains writings that speak ill of God or people believing in God come after he lost most of his family. He was a man most miserable and despondant with mourning. He was one who helped make questioning God and why do bad things happen to good people acceptable in sociatel conversation.

Brother Butler,

I concur that God is in 100% control of the weather. Ironically, I've heard some Landmark Baptist preachers use the text you referenced in Matthew to assert that the rain falls randomly. I have heard others refer to the weather as what God "allows" as if it had some power of its own. Likewise, many of our people are hesitant to acknowledge that the unpleasant aspects of creation, like the disease and torment inflicted by the fly, are directly from the hand of God.

When we accept that God does things that cause men extreme distress and anguish, it totally changes our concept of Him. It seems to me that the reason so many, even of Landmark Baptist people, have modified the Biblical concept of God's providence is because they are unwilling to accept God as He really is, the ramifications of which are monumental to say the least.

Mark Osgatharp
Wynne, Arkansas

Brother Vaughn,

I addressed my remarks on your comment to brother Butler and just realized I was cross reading your comments. Sorry for the oversight.

Mark Osgatharp
Wynne, Arkansas

lol

Good to see that. You had me thinking I said somthing other than what I did, I was getting confused for a moment.

No problem, Brother Osgatharp. These last few weeks I'm just glad to read, whether it is cross-reading or not!

I wonder if those of you who read Twain's Thoughts of God have any comments on this:

Mark Twain wrote:"It is plain that there is one moral law for heaven and another for the earth. The pulpit assures us that wherever we see suffering and sorrow which we can relieve and do not do it, we sin, heavily. There was never yet a case of suffering or sorrow which God could not relieve. Does He sin, then?"

Brother Vaughn,

In my experience, most Baptist people don't seem to think God really has anything to do with suffering other than to give Him credit when He relieves it. Most of our people rest in the idea that God only "allows" suffering which, in their minds, exonerates Him of any culpability in it. But, as Mr. Twain has pointed out in the quote you provided, if God can relieve suffering and does not, that does make Him, at least in some respect, responsible for it.

The true Biblical position is that God is the cause of suffering. He is the one who creates in us the sensation of suffering. He is the one who created physical things, as thorns and thistles, which are instruments of suffering. He directly sends what we call "natural" occurrences, such as sickness and weather catastrophes, which cause suffering.

Not only so, He sends, even if indirectly, the suffering that comes from the wicked acts of evil men. Ultimately, He is the one who will deliver His people from suffering, as surely as He is the one who subjected the whole human race to it, as Paul wrote,

Paul wrote:For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God. For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope, Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.

Baptist people today are so far removed from this understanding of God - which is so inherently part of the fabric of Bible theology that it staggers the imagination that those who profess to read the Scriptures with faith could miss it - that they scarcely attribute the falling of the rain to God, unless, perhaps, it comes in the form of a nice shower on their dry lawn or garden. Our preachers are so loathe to acknowledge God as the source of human suffering that they, in their simplistic zeal, frequently assert that, "God doesn't send anyone to hell, you send yourself."

Though there might be a slender thread of truth in such preaching (that it is man's own sin and rejection of the Savior that ultimately spells his eternal doom) the Scriptures everywhere boldly set God forth as the judge, jury and executioner of those who continue in their sin and rebellion against Him. Paul put it like this:

Paul wrote:But we are sure that the judgment of God is according to truth against them which commit such things. And thinkest thou this, O man, that judgest them which do such things, and doest the same, that thou shalt escape the judgment of God? Or despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and longsuffering; not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance? But after thy hardness and impenitent heart treasurest up unto thyself wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God; who will render to every man according to his deeds: to them who by patient continuance in well doing seek for glory and honour and immortality, eternal life: but unto them that are contentious, and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish, upon every soul of man that doeth evil, of the Jew first, and also of the Gentile; but glory, honour, and peace, to every man that worketh good, to the Jew first, and also to the Gentile: for there is no respect of persons with God.

When we accept God as the author of eternal damnation, we should have no problem accepting Him as the author of the sufferings of this present world which are not worthy to be compared either to the magnitude of the glory that will be revealed in the redeemed nor the suffering that will be inflicted on those who die in their transgressions.

Mark Osgatharp
Wynne, Arkansas

I agree with your comments. If we don't approach it this way, we ultimately fall right into the hands of a skeptic like Twain and can't explain it.

Brother Vaughn,

I totally agree. If we so define God out of the picture and balk at the very idea that He inflicts torment on man or exercises providence over the creation, are we not, in reality, skeptics in our own hearts, even if not so brazen as Mr. Twain and the Deists of his day?

Mark Osgatharp
Wynne, Arkansas

Brother Osgatharp, I am afraid that many named Christians may be skeptics at heart, putting more faith/confidence in science, "mother nature", and so forth, than in God who exercises His providence in His creation and the events of our lives.