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The Cause

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"As the bird by wandering, as the swallow by flying, so the curse causeless shall not come." - Proverbs 26:2

"And David said, What have I now done? Is there not a cause?" - 1 Samuel 17:29

 

THINK ABOUT THIS:

My youth pastor could tell stories like none other. I'm talking David Gibbs sized stories (If you know who that is. Then again, who doesn't?) I looked forward to his preaching simply because of the hilarious stories (don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed the Bible teaching as well). I didn’t care what stories he told…childhood, teenage, college, fights with his brothers…if it was a story he had my ear. I remember specifically one story that was about receiving punishment unjustly. He was a young boy sitting in church, struggling to pay attention. Have you ever noticed things while you’re trying to pay attention that you’ve never seen before? Broken ceiling tiles, a run in the carpet, the intricacy of the stained glass…it’s amazing how everything comes alive when you are young, impatient, and bored. This was one of those times for him. He began to notice how the grooves in the pew had become filled with dust and dirt as time passed. Having a pen on his person, a brilliant idea lit up his elementary age mind. “I should clean out the grooves with my pen!” He promptly began to do so, and became so engrossed in his task that he failed to notice his Dad looking over at him sternly. The next thing he knew, he was being jerked out of his seat, taken out to the vestibule area, and having the board of knowledge administered to the seat of education for drawing with his pen on the pews…despite his objections that he really was simply trying to clean the pew.

That story always made me laugh, especially as a teenager. I would remember times that I felt like I had received punishment unjustly. I have even heard people take this principle and say that if you receive punishment for something unworthily, that it really is just payback for those times that you didn’t get caught. While I don’t really jump on the “karma” bandwagon, I do believe that God has placed a law of reaping and sowing into our world. An example of that is Proverbs 26:2, where Solomon through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit states plainly that the curse does not come without a cause.

As I have studied this truth out, I read after one commentator who applied this principle from Proverbs to I Samuel 17:29, where David asks the famous question, “Is there not a cause?" The truth of the matter is that there was a cause and effect at work here. We see the first curse that had not causeless come was…

1. King Saul

As far as size goes, King Saul was the right choice to fight Goliath. Apparently even Goliath knew this, as he calls himself a Philistine but then changes descriptors and calls the children of Israel “servants to Saul” (I Samuel 17:8). The problem was King Saul was a failure. Not because he had to be…because he chose to be. At one time, King Saul followed the Lord (I Samuel 9:2), listened to His prophet Samuel, and made the children of Israel proud. But two chapters into his reign, Saul disobeys the Lord, fails to wait on Samuel, and acts like anything but a king. God delivers the children of Israel, but not without some repercussions. The Philistines retreat for a little while, but they had discovered a weakness. The second area that the curse had not causeless come was…

2. The children of Israel

While this point goes hand in hand with King Saul’s failures, it was the people who had chosen Saul to be their king. Israel’s rejection of a theocracy and choice of a monarchy was not God’s intention, but God allowed it to happen. This is an example of God’s purposes, man’s free will, and God’s providence…God gave the people what they wanted, only for the people to find out that they didn’t really want it. John Phillips gives us some insight on this when he writes, “They wanted Saul because he was big, and God had given them Saul because they wanted him. Now they discovered that he was not nearly big enough. They had trusted in bigness, and all the enemy had to do was produce someone bigger.”

The application is simple yet profound. When we trust anything other than God, all the enemy has to do is produce something bigger than whatever it is we are trusting. When we trust whether or not we “feel” like God is real in our life, all the enemy has to do is give us something that “feels” more real or more right.

Thankfully, in the midst of our curse that has not causeless come, God offers grace. Especially in this story, we see God’s grace manifested in His taking what would have been a terrible defeat for the children of Israel and causing there to be an incredible victory by revealing to us His cause behind allowing the curse of Goliath, and that was…

3. David

Don’t ever forget that God loves to take Goliath-sized situations and make David’s out of them. David’s words, “Is there not a cause?" have echoed throughout many other grace filled stories in the Bible. When Daniel was thrown to the lions, and the king comes to den and cries out, “O Daniel, servant of the living God, is thy God, whom thou servest continually, able to deliver thee from the lions?” (Daniel 6:20). Daniel’s response may as well have been, “God has a cause…and yes it was to deliver me!” When Paul said in II Corinthians 12:9 that he had been told, "My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness,” he was saying, God has a cause!

Do you feel like there’s a giant in your life? It may be that the curse has not causeless come. Too many times we point the finger at God like it’s His fault for allowing something in our life when in all actuality the “Goliath” we are facing is a result of the activity of the enemy AND the harvest of the seeds that we have sown. Take comfort though…there is a cause! God wants to make a David out you! He has a plan, and His grace is sufficient.

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