SUFFICIENT UNTO THE DAY
IN OUR study of both the Bible and nature we must realize that law is not personal, but that it is inflexible and cannot be broken no matter how much we might endeavour to change or alter it. Furthermore, we live, or should live, as one great community or family,and as we share the blessings of the whole law so we must also share the sufferings of the whole. We know that “He maketh the sun to shine upon the just and the unjust,” therefore “God is no respecter of persons.” In the laws of nature He was impartial. He did not make two sets of law, one for the good and one for the bad, but He made one perfect law whereby those who keep the law might be blessed. But it is a universal law so that to get complete blessings under it, it is necessary for all to conform to it.
As in the individual, if part of the body is sick, the whole body suffers, so in the nation, and so with the whole universe. If part of our national system suffers, the whole of the national life is affected.
Thus a Christian in the nation has to suffer because of a national folly, ignorance, or sin, and in the same way the nation has to suffer because of a worldwide folly. For instance: if the nation brings in a law that allows commercial business to open on Sundays, thus making it necessary for some to work on Sundays, those who work are not sinners but are the victims of the national breaking of the law. In exactly the same way, however much an individual believes in the Lord and tries to keep His commandments, if he is living in a system that is not functioning according to the law, he must suffer with the rest of the community, unless the Lord in His love intervenes to prevent the suffering.
A great law says “Be sure your sin will find you out.” Note, it does not say that you will be found out; it says your sin will find you out, and every sin we commit must leave its scar upon us either mentally or physically. It is the Lord’s great work of love. A great deal of the suffering of mankind, however, is not due to human sin, but due to human folly and human ignorance, perhaps more so to human fear. The fear of the future is one of the main causes for selfishness and greed.
A man looking back on his past life has to admit that he had worried over many things that did not come to pass, but simply arose as deep shadows lying across the future. Because of this worry, he planned and did many things contrary to the dictates of his conscience or the will of his God.The evils of the present day, the national outcome of the sin, folly, ignorance, fear of the past are looming larger than they have ever done before and to us as individuals, and especially to us as a nation, there comes the splendid advice of the Lord,
“Seek ye first the Kingdom of God, and his righteousness.”
If we do this, instead of fighting the waves of evil that threaten to swamp us if they break upon us, we will leave them to our Lord, and have faith in Him. We will, like Peter of old, walk over these evil waves, and know that we are waIking with Him safe, secure and at peace even in the storms of life.
