If you ever doubt God is in control, look up! The very clouds above us are His watering system. God doesn’t need to lug around a watering hose or use a sprinkler. He transports water through the clouds. As the sea and ground heat up, water from both is pulled up to the clouds. He then moves His clouds, sometimes thousands of miles, and waters His designated spots on earth. He needs no electricity, no motors, no gas-powered engines! He not only created the clouds, but He also pulled water from where He wanted and allowed rain where He wanted. God can use water to bless a country or curse a country!
Growing up in Texas, I found that farmers often pray a lot, knowing that only the Lord can bring rain! Without God’s blessing of rain, crops died, and with it, great prosperity! The Bible is clear that God is in control of ALL things! While man has free will, God still allows, operates, and controls the outcome! Even the devil can’t operate unless God has allowed it!
Consider Job—God had a hedge of thorns around Job, his family, and his business. Job reverently feared, worshiped, and honored the Lord! After roaming the earth, Satan came to God to accuse His children. God said, “Have you considered My servant Job?” (Then the Lord said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil.” Job 1:8) Satan said, “I can’t touch Job because You are protecting him.” God temporarily took the hedge of thorns out from around Job!
Notice how Satan can’t even do the bad stuff unless God allows it! Does this mean that God is the creator of sin or willful disobedience? No! Absolutely not! While God allows it, He is not the author of sin. Satan is!
“Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned —” Romans 5:12
So, what about evil men or tragic events? Remember, God does not author sin but allows it to happen. This means that even though God is not responsible for wrongdoing, He permits it to occur! God allowed sin in the Garden, but He didn’t create it. For instance, He hardened Pharaoh’s heart, but it was Pharaoh’s sinful nature that led him to sin. God’s goodness keeps us in check, but if He takes His hand off us, our sinful nature takes control.
Everything is in His hands! He can bring rain or drought, prosperity or want! To those who are called according to His purpose, He works all things for their good and His glory. For those who reject God, eternal separation comes! When we see bad all around us, we have a crucial decision to make—-to recognize that He is in control and praise Him, as Job did, or to reject Him!
As Tony Evans reminds us in the attached sermon, Satan cannot even be a good Satan unless God allows it! No matter how difficult things may become, the Lord God has made it clear: “If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.” 2 Chronicles 7:14
I have seen firsthand prosperity in drought—and it’s all God! Listen to the sermon below as you drive and consider Who controls the clouds around your house! In your prayer life, ask God never to take His hand off you or your family. Without His goodness, we are nothing but dry land waiting on an empty cloud!
Have a blessed Thursday!
Stephen L. Thomas