Being Brought to One’s Wits’ End

Hi Mike,

It’s been ages since I have contacted you. To be honest this whole sovereignty of God is messing me up to the point of actually driving me insane. I know it’s the truth, but I just can’t accept it.
I haven’t been to church now for about three years, and that comes with its own problems. Anyway I have mostly ignored God for months now. When I dwell on this, it drives me insane, so at times I prefer to just ignore it. I know you get this question a lot, but I just can’t accept that God has a spiritual book for everyone who has been born and will ever be born. Do you actually accept this in your heart? I ask because since I have known this truth, I am definitely guilty of abusing his grace. It seems to me I was a better christian when I was going to church because now I sometimes get high and sin in other ways. To me he is causing me to do it, and I understand that grace chastens and as long as I continue to sin, he will continue to chasten or scourge me, but I can’t help myself. I rarely pray and haven’t picked up my bible in over a year. You say that He has to give me the desire to pick up my bible and pray. I want so much to accept this, but can’t and do not understand why he did it this way.
It was such a relief when I found this truth and knew somewhat that none of this was my fault, but this truth is haunting me now and I wonder how long He is going to continue to cause me to sin and continue to burn me for something he has apparently caused me to do. I am not disagreeing with anything you have to say, but I am having an impossible time at even coming close to accepting this sovereignty of God. I have experienced that peace beyond understanding in the rare times I do get a grasp on it.
I guess I am asking for help in accepting what’s going on in my life right now. Please reply when you can.

Thanks,
S____

Hi S____,

Thank you for being honest about where you are in your walk.
What you are experiencing is what we all experience. There is not one of God’s elect who are not first a ‘lost sheep’ who has left the Babylonian flock. We all ‘leave their first love…” then become the prodigal son who wastes his spiritual substance before returning to his Father in deep heartfelt repentance. We are all blind before we are healed of that blindness, and we begin to see Christ, and become like Him.

Luk 15:7 I say unto you, that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons, which need no repentance.

Since there are no “just persons, which need no repentance”, and since that are 99% who, just like Job, think they are “just” and “need no repentance”, you are better off at least seeing yourself for the sinner you are than those who think of themselves as righteous because they are not doing the things sinners do, but they do believe all the lies of Babylon. Rest assured, you will “come to yourself” and realize that the pigs you are feeding, you are feeding for a master whose food and wages will starve you to death, and you will be judged for the wasteful way you are leading your life at this time.

Luk 15:11 And he said, A certain man had two sons:
Luk 15:12 And the younger of them said to his father, Father, give me the portion of goods that falleth to me. And he divided unto them his living.
Luk 15:13 And not many days after the younger son gathered all together, and took his journey into a far country, and there wasted his substance with riotous living.
Luk 15:14 And when he had spent all, there arose a mighty famine in that land; and he began to be in want.
Luk 15:15 And he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country; and he sent him into his fields to feed swine.
Luk 15:16 And he would fain have filled his belly with the husks that the swine did eat: and no man gave unto him.
Luk 15:17 And when he came to himself, he said, How many hired servants of my father’s have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger!
Luk 15:18 I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee,
Luk 15:19 And am no more worthy to be called thy son: make me as one of thy hired servants.
Luk 15:20 And he arose, and came to his father. But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him.
Luk 15:21 And the son said unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son.
Luk 15:22 But the father said to his servants, Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet:
Luk 15:23 And bring hither the fatted calf, and kill it; and let us eat, and be merry:
Luk 15:24 For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found. And they began to be merry.

I want you to read this parable of the prodigal son with these verses of God’s Word in mind:

Ecc 9:2 All things come alike to all: there is one event to the righteous, and to the wicked; to the good and to the clean, and to the unclean; to him that sacrificeth, and to him that sacrificeth not: as is the good, so is the sinner; and he that sweareth, as he that feareth an oath.

“All things come alike to all…” This means that we are all prodigal before we deeply repent and say, “I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son.”
“As is the good, so is the sinner” is true simply because we are all first sinners, and we remain sinners long after we first come to God. That is the lesson of spending forty years in the wilderness after coming out of Egypt. That is the lesson of ‘tempting God’ “these ten times” while in the wilderness.

Num 14:22 Because all those men which have seen my glory, and my miracles, which I did in Egypt and in the wilderness, and have tempted me now these ten times, and have not hearkened to my voice;

Put all of this together with these words right out of the mouth of our Lord, and you will know where you are in your walk.

Mat 4:4 But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.

The parable of the prodigal son and the words “tempted me now these ten times” have “proceeded out of the mouth of God”, and “all things [ really do] come alike to all”.
So you are at this time where I was when I was still a slave to my own flesh, while knowing that God was sovereign. I too, wanted it all to stop long before it finally did. I too, was exasperated with God’s way of doing things. I knew I could do things in a less painful way than God was doing His work in me.
This is what we all come to:

Psa 107:27 They reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man, and are at their wits’ end.
Rom 7:24 O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?

You ask me:

I know you get this question a lot but I just can’t accept that God has a spiritual book for everyone who has been born and will ever be born. Do you actually accept this in your heart?

Oh yes, I “actually accept this in my heart”! I will always prefer the word of God to my own logic or to the false doctrines of men.

Psa 139:16 Thine eyes did see mine unformed substance; And in thy book they were all written, Even the days that were ordained for me, When as yet there was none of them.

That verse in Psalms is the very meaning of ‘all the hairs of your head are numbered’.

Mat 10:30 but the very hairs of your head are all numbered.

God is not as interested in the hairs of our head as He is the thoughts within that head. They too, are all numbered, and they are all known by Him “when as yet there was none of them”.
You know this is all true, even as you struggle with the pulls of your flesh, which, at this time, are your master.

… since I have known this truth, I am definitely guilty of abusing his grace.

But God is judging you now, and in His time you will overcome the tendency to use God’s sovereignty as an occasion to the flesh, thus turning His chastening grace into lasciviousness.
Let me warn you that God’s chastening is much more powerful than any weakness of your flesh. He with whom you have to do is more than capable of overcoming your stubborn flesh. In His time you will be more than happy to give up all the sins that now beset you.
But be warned that this system calls for “a great earthquake”.

Rev 16:18 And there were voices, and thunders, and lightnings; and there was a great earthquake, such as was not since men were upon the earth, so mighty an earthquake, and so great.

So do not be surprised that you are doing these things. All young men succumb to their flesh in some way or another. I just pray that these verses of scripture resonated their Truth within you, and will, in His time, purge you of “every sin that so easily besets us.”

Ecc 11:9 Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth; and let thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth, and walk in ways of thine heart, and in the sight of thine eyes: but know thou, that for all these things God will bring thee into judgment.
Ecc 11:10 Therefore remove sorrow from thy heart, and put away evil from thy flesh: for childhood and youth are vanity.
Heb 12:1 Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us,

Your brother who is praying fervently for you,

Mike >