The Goodness of God (Chapter Seven)

Chapter Seven

Error Six: God Will Withhold Some Good Things Because They Can Cause Us To Backslide

"We can make the boldest requests, knowing that He who gives the greatest blessing can give the grace to keep it from being a selfish idol or a curse to our spirit. People sometimes say, 'If God were to heal me or give me some temporal blessing for which I am praying, I fear it might not be best for me.' Can we not trust Him for the grace as well as the gift?" - A.B. Simpson [1]

God is not obligated to answer a prayer that is foolish and not in line with His will for our lives. God cares to much for His children to give things that will do us more harm and no good.

Yet, as we have seen in our last Two lessons, God's will can be known by His promises and by the voice of the Holy Spirit. God has bound Himself to do what He has spoken in His Word (Num. 23:19). No man can MAKE God do anything. However, He has covenanted Himself with man. Within this covenant He has given promises and He has bound HIMSELF to His word. You and I cannot force the hand of God to do anything. He has already decided that He would do it when we ask Him.

Because most people know that God will not answer FOOLISH prayers and give things that are harmful, many Christians have allowed themselves to be deprived of the many good things that God has promised us. They have allowed the devil to deceive them into thinking any good blessing could cause them to stray.

Yet God assures us that if we walk uprightly then He will not withhold any good thing from us:

"For the Lord is a sun and a shield: the Lord will give grace and glory: NO GOOD THING WILL HE WITHHOLD from them that walk uprightly." (Ps. 84:11)

There are some people who may have had every material blessing that they ever desired. Through some terrible circumstances they lost everything. They had no other choice but to turn to God. Now they know the joy of fellowshipping with God. They have found out that His presence is worth more than a trillion dollars.

Because of this they believe that their poverty is a good thing. They are afraid that if they receive any material blessing it will cause them to lose fellowship with God. They are afraid that it will cause them to go back to their old ways.

The same has happened with many people in sickness. Since they were bedridden they had plenty of time to pray and read their Bible. They are now afraid that if they have health restored to them that they will go back to living the "half baked" Christian life that they lived before.

Yet the Bible tells us that the Lord will give GRACE. The word "grace" means "divine favor" The Bible implies that it is something that is not deserved but given upon the basis of the righteousness of Christ (Eph. 1:6-7; 2:8-9; Titus 3:4-5). It is this grace that strengthens and helps us in our walk with Christ (Heb. 4:16; 2 Tim. 2:1; 1 Pet. 5:5-10; 2 Cor. 12:7-10).

God never once told us that we had to live free from sin in our own power. He gives us His grace to strengthen us. It is not by denying ourselves of good things that will enable us to obtain victory over sin. It is by faith in His grace to strengthen us that we will live uprightly.

When we walk upright before Him He will withhold NO good thing from us. Yet, He provides us with the grace to walk upright. You can't beat a deal like that.

This error comes very close to LEGALISM. Legalism is trying to live the Christian life by observing a bunch of rules, regulations, and customs. These are without any dependence upon God's power which grace gives us. The Jews had the righteous laws of God but these laws were given to PROVE that no man could live up to God's standards in his or her own strength (Gal. 3:24-25).

Therefore if we have to live up to a certain standard in order to receive God's blessings then we could not even get to heaven. Will God deny us free passage to heaven because He’s afraid that we may backslide when we get there? Certainly not! Therefore, if we can be born again and guaranteed heaven by His grace, can we not believe Him for the grace to appropriate all of His blessings.

"For the promise, that he should be heir of the world, was not to Abraham, or to his seed, through the law, but through the righteousness of faith. For if they which are of the law be heirs, faith is made void, and the promise is of none effect: Because the law worketh wrath: for where no law is, there is no transgression. Therefore, IT IS OF FAITH, THAT IT MIGHT BE BY GRACE; to the end that the promise might be sure to all the seed...." (Rom. 4:13-16a)

I like the way the Living Bible paraphrases the first part of verse 16: "So God's blessings are given to us by faith, as a free gift; we are certain to get them...." God's grace guarantees us that we can have all that God has made available to us regardless of its SUPPOSED potential to cause us to backslide. Grace provides the blessings of God to us on a FREE basis:

"He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also FREELY give us all things." (Rom. 8:32)

God's blessings are not EARNED. They are gifts given by His grace and appropriated by faith. Too many people feel unworthy and undeserving of God's blessings. Do not worry, YOU ARE! If you are depending on YOUR righteousness to make you worthy and deserving, you will always come short.

However, Christ is worthy and deserving of every blessing that God could ever give. You and I are IN CHRIST. We are members of His body. He has purchased us by His blood. His blood cleanses us from the sin that makes us unworthy. Therefore if Christ deserves it then we can have it. Anything less is to count the redeeming work of Christ as unworthy for you.

Christ’s death on our behalf is sufficient to make us worthy to receive ALL that God has for His children. You are no longer a "sinner saved by grace." You WERE a sinner (Rom. 5:8-9; Notice the past tense of this statement). You were saved by grace (Eph. 2:8-9). Now you are the righteousness of God in Christ (2 Cor. 5:21). Therefore, anything Christ deserves can be yours by faith in His redeeming work:

".....the upright shall have good things in possession." (Prov. 28:10)

"Blessings are on the head of the righteous....." (Prov. 10:6; NKJV)

God does not sit on the throne, biting His nails, wondering that if He blesses you, will it cause you to backslide. If you are living righteously by His power, you have made yourself available to be blessed.

There is nothing in the Bible that can prove that God will withhold His blessings because of the potential of His people to backslide. On the contrary, the Bible shows many times over that He blessed some people abundantly and they still backslid. But that did not keep Him from blessing them and others.

The story of the prodigal son shows a type of God the Father and the backslidden Christian. Here we find the giving heart of God:

"And he said, A certain man had two sons: 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. And not many days after the younger son gathered all together, and took his journey into a far away country, and there WASTED HIS SUBSTANCE ON RIOTOUS LIVING." (Luke 15:11-13)

If the father in this story is a type of our Heavenly Father, then he must have known that giving his son all that blessing would lead to him wasting it. Even if that was not true he should at least have learned a lesson from the first time, right? Most of us would have said, “Well, he blew the last time. I’ll be careful about blessing him this time. I don’t need him continually wasting my blessings.”

However, as we read further into the story, the son came back in repentance. The father could have said, "Son, I'll forgive you and take you back, but I've learned not to give you any of the good things that I have. You will have to do without from here on. It's for your own good. It'll keep you from going astray again."

That is what he could have said. Instead he said something different:

"But the father said to the servants, Bring forth the BEST robe and put it on him; and put a RING on his hand, and shoes on his feet: And bring hither the fatted calf, and kill it; and let us eat and be merry." (Luke 15:22-23)

Even after his son backslid and returned, he showered him with the BEST that he had. Our Heavenly Father is much more wealthy and loving than any human father. Shouldn't we expect the same from Him.

God was going to bless Israel abundantly in the land of Canaan. As we read Deuteronomy 8:7-20, God shows them that there was a potential for them to backslide after they have received His blessings. Let's read verses ten and eleven:

"When thou hast eaten and art full, then thou shalt bless the Lord thy God for the good land which he hath given thee. Beware that thou forget not the Lord thy God, in not keeping his commandments, and his judgements, and his statutes, which I command thee this day."

Later on, God warns them of the same thing through Joshua:

"If ye forsake the Lord, and serve strange gods, then he will turn and do you hurt, and consume you, AFTER that he hath done you good." (Josh. 24:20)

You see, God knew that they could possibly backslide even after He had blessed them abundantly in the promised land. When you read the book of Judges you find that they did just that - they backslid.

Since God knew this, shouldn’t He have kept them in the wilderness with nothing but the basic necessities so that they could have stayed close to Him? That would seem like the most logical way to us but it is not God's way. God is in the business of blessing His people.

If God were to withhold blessings on such a basis then none of us could ever be blessed because we are all subject to temptation. It is a sin itself to blame God's blessings as the cause of one's backsliding:

"Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man: But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed." (James 1:13-14)

A man is tempted by HIS OWN LUST. It is not God that tempteth him. Man is not tempted because of good things. If a person is so easily drawn by lust, then that person will sin whether God blesses him or not.

People are tempted with EVIL, not good. God goes on to say that the blessings He gives are GOOD and to believe that it is His gifts that will cause one to backslide is to err:

"Do not err, my beloved brethren. Every GOOD gift and every PERFECT gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variableness, neither shadow of turning." (James 1:16-17)

Therefore it is wrong to blame God's blessings as the cause for people backsliding. In the garden of Eden Adam blamed God for his sin by saying, "The woman whom THOU GAVEST to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat." (Gen. 3:12). In other words, Adam was saying, "I backslid because of your blessing to me."

Doesn't that sound ludicrous? Yet we make such statements as this: "God won't bless me with that because it may cause me to backslide." It was not God's gift that caused Adam to backslide. God's gift to Him was good and perfect. When Eve presented the fruit to Adam he was drawn away of his own lust and enticed. God was not to blame for it.

God is not to blame for anyone else backsliding after He has healed them, delivered them, prospered them or blessed them in any other kind of way. I have seen a person get healed of cancer and turn away from God right after that. Yet, God did not stop healing people after that.

A friend of mine who is a minister in the Philippines told me the story of how a family in his church asked God for furniture, refrigerator and other material possessions. These things are very hard to get in the Philippines and are reserved for the wealthy. Yet God miraculously provided all of this to them. Not too long afterwards, they stopped coming to church. Yet this did not stop God from blessing others materially and financially.

We do not condone backsliding. On the contrary we do not recommend it because it can come with some serious consequences. You take yourself from under God's protection and you leave yourself open for Satan to destroy your life when you turn away from God.

On the other hand, we do not want people to withhold from themselves all that God has made available because they think it has the potential to cause them to turn away from Him. These people become afraid to claim all that God has made available to them. This fear comes from Satan. Do not let Him lie to you. If the grace of God can provide you with His blessings, then that same grace can enable you to keep it from becoming a snare and a hindrance.

E-mail: victoryword@yahoo.com

Back to The Goodness of God Table of Contents

Back to Chapter Six

Go to Chapter Eight

Back to Home

Back to Free Books