01.32. The Divine Permission of Wrong Doing
Chapter 32 THE DIVINE PERMISSION OF WRONG DOING.
There is scarcely any feature connected with man’s stay on earth more mysterious than the apparent unconsciousness and inaction of the Supreme Being in regard to the violence, injustice, cruelty and wrong doing which takes place in every age and on every hand.
Nations are overwhelmed, cities pillaged, people slain or led into captivity, and there seems no sign in the skies that the Omniscient One up there beheld any part of the melancholy history.
Looking closer we behold individuals wronged, cheated, impoverished, insulted, slandered, oppressed and murdered, and still no voice forbidding from Heaven, no thunderbolt of justice or vengeance dropping from a cloud, the seasons come and go, the victim sinks out of public sight or disappears in the grave, while the wrongdoer keeps on in a flourishing way, well in body, prosperous in business and having apparently all that heart could wish.
David confessed that he had been nearly overwhelmed at this view of crowned iniquity, and sleeping justice, until from the standpoint of the sanctuary he got light and explanation. And many since David’s time have wondered and even despaired over the same spectacle, and failed to get the viewpoint and consolation from the House of God. Not a reader of these lines but could give matter for a volume showing up the suffering of the innocent, the triumph and prosperity of the wicked, and the wrongs of a life time coming to the tomb and final sleeping place of the dead, still unrectified.
We knew a man who married a wealthy and beautiful Southern girl. He gambled her fortune away, was faithless to her, made her life miserable and finally broke her heart. Long ago she has been in the grave robbed of many years of a beautiful life to which she was entitled. In the last few years of her existence she had to toil like a slave. Her sorrows drove her into a seclusion from her friends, and then came the untimely grave. The man who committed the wrong still lives, seemingly without regret or remorse, has every physical comfort, and has his concluding years made bright and pleasant to him through a daughter who is perfectly devoted to this slayer of her mother. A handsome girl from the same Southland married a man who fairly worshipped her. There was no want of hers but he gladly supplied and his constant effort for years was to make life bright and beautiful to her. In return she neglected and heart starved him, and he became the saddest and most silent of men. He died in the prime of manhood and seemed glad to go. She was left with the property, and is still living without any sign of mental or spiritual suffering, and no mark or judgment of a displeased Heaven upon member, person or life for the course of selfishness, sinfulness and heartlessness which she followed for over forty years. In numerous Gospel meetings, the worldly Churchianity element prevails against faithful servants of God and the truth as it is in its fullness in Christ. Sometimes the evangelist is sent off unpaid, while busy tongues abuse and misjudge him by the retail and wholesale. He and the Holiness people who stood with him are said to be disturbers, church splitters and the spreaders of false doctrine. The services close on some occasions with a very slender victory, or a drawn fight, or what seems to the public to be a defeat for full salvation. The workers go away under social and ecclesiastical disfavor, while the victorious, worldly element of the church, resume the reproved, condemned methods of amusement and finance, get a popular evangelist the next time, and seem not only to be perfectly serene and easy in heart and mind, are happy in the social, and prosperous in the business life, but even appear to the public to have the favor of Heaven with them in their subsequent revival meeting under the gentle sway of Bro. Easy, the evangelist, and Professor Smile, the leader of song.
People predicted the swift and terrible judgment of Heaven upon individuals, lay and ministerial, for the part they took in blocking up the way of a sweeping revival, and standing in between God and the souls of their household and the congregation as to salvation. Some thought they would be struck dead in a few days. But the weeks roll by and we see the laughers and resisters of holiness, still breaking the Sabbath, still going to the lodge, still smoking their pipes and cigars, and still evidently prospering in the store, standing high in the conference, powerful in the cabinet, and saying their health was never better than now.
We have known faithful preachers put out of prominent pulpits by wealthy people who used bishops as their instruments. Such men we have seen humiliated before the public, ostracized from many circles, brought into the deepest financial distress, while the families that so crushed them rolled around in wealth, in carriages, in pride and in fat. Not a sign could be seen from the visible Heaven that God had observed the way in which His devoted messengers had been treated.
Humiliation and want were the accompaniments of the victim, and comfort, plenty, human adulation and their dictatorial way in everything seemed to go with those who had smitten the truth and God’s prophets. In a meeting led by the writer, a man mauled and beat his wife for attending the services.
She yielded and has doubtless gone into spiritual darkness. The man remains in excellent health, has seeming good spirits, enjoys eating and drinking, attends the lodge, and is evidently pleased highly with himself and the life he is living. Not a single stroke from the skies fell upon him when he struck down the mother of his children for attending the church where the fullness of the Gospel of Christ was being held up to her hungry soul. It looked then and since as if God had not observed the cruelty, brutality and moral awfulness of the act. That weakness and innocence are helpless, and that money, physical might and meanness have their day and complete, unhindered right of way.
Before the reader draws a hasty conclusion, let him remember that this is not an unusual happening. This is not peculiar to this century, and the one lately passed away.
How long were the Jews in Egyptian captivity or slavery? How long was Joseph in prison, while those who put him there were in freedom outside? Let the reader count the years that Herod lived after he killed John the Baptist. It looked like God could not avenge the death of His true servant. Then enumerate the years Pilate lived after giving Jesus up to the murderous, clamoring Jews. And still again observe that Jerusalem remained in its pride, ease, wealth, pleasure and formal ritualistic life forty years after crucifying the Son of God. To the careless thinker and observer it appears as if no great crime had been committed after all; as if Heaven was powerless to judge the proud city and haughty church that had murdered God’s only Son, and requite them for the horrible crime they had committed. But God saw them! And God sees now! And the insulted King of the Universe had the power then and now to destroy in s single moment of time every being who is transgressing His laws, wronging His people and outraging the authority, dignity and majesty of Heaven. But there was and are still, reasons for that conduct on the part of the Almighty which men have falsely construed into inattention, inaction, and disregard of what is going on in the ranks of the beings He has created.
One cause for God’s apparent permission of wrong doing, is that immediate signal punishment and calamity for every misdeed would change the present probationary existence into a kind of automaton machine, slave, penitentiary like character of living.
Just as men in penal institutions are knocked down, beaten and severely punished for the slightest misdeed, and get to wear a cowed face which covers a trembling, fearful, dissembling spirit, and obedience is rendered simply from servile dread and not from noble motives of love, duty and right; so the sudden infliction of judgment and physical suffering on men by the Almighty for every wrong word and act, would end the very freedom of choice, the liberty of motive and the untrammeled spontaneous character of life that makes a genuine probation.
Men would be outwardly good or obedient to divine commandments simply to escape immediate visitations of divine displeasure and wrath. Earth would no longer be an arena, where men could and would show to three worlds what their inward character really was, but a vast prison house where pricking swords, uplifted whips, handcuffs, clubs and dark cells in constant threat and use made the human race walk straight and do right, not from the love of God and good, but from constant dread of suffering and a paralyzing dread of the Lord of Heaven.
God is no suppressionist. He wants things to come out for manifestation, confession, renunciation and destruction. Moreover, the very liberty He grants men in their lives to act out what is really in them, becomes a wonderful confirmation of what He says in His Word about sin, and the human heart in its deceitfulness, blackness and desperate wickedness.
We do not doubt that if God had not thrown out the lines of longitude and latitude of perfect moral freedom, but had instead driven the race into a sullen, stolid submission through a superior physical force, that the students of character and writers on the spiritual and character life would be extolling human nature to the skies and the solemn assertions of the Bible about the extent and depth of the world’s downfall into sin would be denied on every hand. But as the parable says, the Lord went into a far country, and stayed a long time. Here the permission for wrong doing is brought out in the double figure of a great distance and long time.
Then came out the true inwardness of the tenants and they began their wicked career of injustice, oppression and cruelty. They took advantage of what seems to be opportunity, and filled the land with the sighs, tears and groans of their victims. A second reason for the divine permission of wrong doing for long periods is, that it is made to be a powerful test and discipline for the faith, patience and piety, of God’s own people.
David was driven to the sanctuary to understand as well as to endure the reign and prosperity of the wicked. And we will have to make the same flight to God to bear up under what we are forced to see and made to feel by the same characters and classes.
We know of no more powerful call and drain upon faith than the sight of the wicked in power and comfort, while God’s true ones lack for daily necessities, are visited with afflictions, and meet with the unkindest and most unjust treatment at the hands of their fellow men. The soul is compelled to cling to God’s word, and believe in God’s truth and faithfulness then, or it is sure to be undone. As for the discipline received by the mind and heart through such experiences, we need not argue. We have long ago seen both in the Scripture and in life, that God in His dealings with His followers is constantly endeavoring to bring forth the passive graces of the Christian character which beyond all question are the loveliest of all the virtues, excellencies and fruit of the redeemed soul. With this thought in mind we begin to see why the Lord let David have so many enemies and suffer so much at their hands; why Job was so afflicted and lost his friends; why Joseph was allowed to stay in prison such a weary while; and why to this day He permits His people to be brought along ways of wrongs, sorrow and suffering that they never would have dreamed of choosing for themselves. The result in many cases, in sweetness, patience, silent endurance, self-containedness and a mighty strength in God, justifies the wisdom and providence of Heaven in the manner in which they have been tried, and the way along which they have been led. A third reason for God’s slowness in inflicting immediate punishment on men for wrongdoing is that He has appointed a day, a great, final Day of Judgment when every one shall give account of himself to God for every thought, word and deed of the life, and when justice shall be laid to the line and righteousness to the plummet.
God is going to be vindicated that day, the injured shall be righted, and sin shall be fearfully and eternally punished. So great, perfect and overwhelming will be the victory of that final period for truth and for God, that He can afford to wait quietly, silently and assuredly for that time. The infidel, blasphemer and swearer will get their deserts that day. The business man who with trusts, monopolies, high prices and cheats in trade got rich at the expense of his oppressed neighbors will get his suffering and damnation at last. The rich who denied crumbs of bread to the poor at their gate will scream for drops of water in hell. The bishop who went around lecturing on secular and fictional subjects instead of preaching the Gospel; who traveled on the train on Sunday and fought Holiness will stand undone at the Judgment and fall away with a cry of horror from the presence of the Judge as He says, "Depart from Me--I know you not." The man with the slanderous pen and mouth; the woman with the tongue of a serpent, will receive their retributive doom at last and be cast into the same Pit with all liars, whisperers, backbiters and takers up of every reproach against a neighbor. The being who possessed social, ecclesiastical and financial power on earth will be stripped of it all in the presence of Christ, and find too late that spiritual treasure is what is demanded that Day, that likeness in speech and life to Christ, and that the power of Blood-washed character is the real potency and necessary condition in the eternal world. The reign of the oppressor in church, state, social circle, business office, and the home, is over forever. The innocent are vindicated, the wronged are righted, the injured are blessedly and eternally recompensed. Tears are wiped away forever. There will be no more sorrow, neither any kind of pain. As for the wicked, the Bible says they shall be turned into hell with all the nations that forget God. It is the Day of the Wrath of the Lamb and the Justice and Judgment of God. Well does the Scripture say, "The Great Day of His wrath has come, and who will be able to stand!"
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