Cause of 1st effect . . .

God is the cause of 1st effect. In II Samuel 24.l it says, “He (God) moved David” to number the people. I Chronicle 21.l retells the incident and says, “Satan stood up against Israel, and provoked David to number Israel”. Evidently God and Satan provoked David to do the same thing, but how can that be? The Wycliffe Bible Commentary interprets these verses in light of God being the cause of 1st effect: “From the Biblical viewpoint, all things have their ultimate source in God. Even the wrath of man, and Satan, ultimately further the Divine purpose.”

I don’t know about you, but knowing nothing takes the Lord by surprise, and knowing that God is good and He is good ALL the time, no matter what man or the devil is up to in the world, brings me great comfort and security.

Though the cause of evil prosper,
Yet ‘tis truth alone is strong;
Though her portion be the scaffold
And upon the throne be wrong,
Yet that scaffold sways the future,
And, behind the dim unknown,
Standeth God within the shadow,
Keeping watch above His own.
(-James Russell Lowell, 1819-91)

David was God’s representative on earth, and God’s “eternal purpose” was to be accomplished through David’s physical descendants to bring forth the One who would redeem the world from the dominion of Satan. The eternal Son, Jesus Christ, did become mortal flesh, and He did redeem the world and won the victory over Satan at the cross of Calvary. How Satan must have danced for glee on Good Friday when he accomplished the death of the only Man who could defeat him—but oh, the horror of his mistake when on Resurrection morning he realized the cross was exactly what God had purposed to free the world from his grasp!

Today Satan is agitated and “walketh about, seeking whom he may devour” (I Peter 5.8). He knows he is a defeated foe and his time is short and his judgment of doom is certain. He still is a ‘roaring lion’, but a greater lion, the Lord Jesus Christ, “The Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, hath prevailed…” at the cross of Calvary. Alleluia! (Rev. 5.5)

O Cross that liftest up my head,
I dare not ask to fly from Thee;
I lay in dust life’s glory dead,
And from the ground there blossoms red
Life that shall endless be.

Thank you Lord Jesus.