How God Deals with Us
"I am Joseph."
GENESIS 45:3
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How God Deals with Us
This is a very beautiful example of how God deals with us. For when He afflicts the godly and conceals the fact that He is our God and Father and rather conducts Himself as a tyrant and judge who wants to torture and destroy us, He says at last in His own time and at a suitable hour: "I am the Lord your God. Hitherto I have treated you just as if I wanted to cast you off and hurl you into hell. But this is a game I am wont to play with My saints; for if I had not wished you well from My heart, I would never have played with you in this manner." These matters are depicted in this way in the government of the saints for our consolation, in order that we may learn to endure the hand of God when He instructs and vexes us to cause us to know and humble ourselves and to mortify that horrible evil which is called original sin. For this is not done in order that we may be condemned and cast off—although our cross and affliction is similar to perdition and death—but the sin clinging to our nature must be cleaned out, in order that we may learn the meaning of what the Lord says concerning Himself in 1 Samuel 2:6-7: "I kill and bring to life; I bring down to Sheol and raise up; I make poor and make rich."
GENESIS 45:3
+
How God Deals with Us
This is a very beautiful example of how God deals with us. For when He afflicts the godly and conceals the fact that He is our God and Father and rather conducts Himself as a tyrant and judge who wants to torture and destroy us, He says at last in His own time and at a suitable hour: "I am the Lord your God. Hitherto I have treated you just as if I wanted to cast you off and hurl you into hell. But this is a game I am wont to play with My saints; for if I had not wished you well from My heart, I would never have played with you in this manner." These matters are depicted in this way in the government of the saints for our consolation, in order that we may learn to endure the hand of God when He instructs and vexes us to cause us to know and humble ourselves and to mortify that horrible evil which is called original sin. For this is not done in order that we may be condemned and cast off—although our cross and affliction is similar to perdition and death—but the sin clinging to our nature must be cleaned out, in order that we may learn the meaning of what the Lord says concerning Himself in 1 Samuel 2:6-7: "I kill and bring to life; I bring down to Sheol and raise up; I make poor and make rich."
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