Psalm 34: 7 - 8
The Complexities of Divine Blessing

But how do we harmonize them with the many passages in the Psalms which speak bitterly about hard times the Psalmist is enduring and the Psalmist cries out to the Lord for deliverance? Or about the great many other passages of Scripture -- including the whole book of Job who had the most classically severe set of tragedies and maladies as has probably ever been experienced. And what of the troubles that the Lord told us might come upon us? And Paul's statement that "They who would live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution"? And what of the great severity of Paul's own life which he describes as unending "afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, tumults, toiling, sleeplessness and hunger?" How do we harmonize these two things -- the promises of blessing and the permission of burdens and wretchedness? 

I. FIRST OF ALL, WE SURELY DO AFFIRM THE BLESSING OF THE LORD UPON THE CHRISTIAN BELIEVER.. 

1. There can be no doubt that God has gone on record as promising to bless us. "vv7-10" Not only in this passage but in scores of others that you are no doubt aware of. 

2. This blessing includes protection, provision for our basic creaturely needs, even extra, special blessings that quite often go beyond subsistence and spill over into the category of comfort and even pleasure. 

3. We who live in this time and place in history are enjoying the unparalleled blessing of the Lord in these sorts of things and as I have said before it is a wonderful preparation for worship and thanksgiving to sit down and enumerate the individual blessings of your life. 

Never get away from this! Never become hard and cynical about the Lord's promises and his generous treatment of the believer both in time and eternity. He is your dear Heavenly Father! And he has heaped indescribably great blessing upon you. 

II. BUT WE MUST RECKON WITH THE NEGATIVES OF OUR LIVES ALSO -- THE THINGS THAT, AT THE TIME, WE DO NOT PERCEIVE AS GOOD AND, IF THE TRUTH CAN BE TOLD, WE SEE AS HORRIBLE, MISERABLE CURSES. 

1. The Bible itself is filled with passages that warn us that in the good purposes of God we should not take for granted this material and physical blessing as if it were a guaranteed outcome in every situation. 

Americans, especially, are continually demanding things from their schools and from industry and from government and government agencies -- things that are questionable legal or human rights. I'm not sure there are such things as "inalienable rights with which we are endowed by our Creator" as most Americans would like to believe. And it is likely that this preoccupation with their "rights" probably indicates that they have the same attitude toward God also. The Christian must beware of this prevailing mentality. He is the creature of grace and his only plea is not "rights" but the mercy of God alone. 

2. The faithful believer sees these exceptions which we are called upon to endure either for the purpose of fitting into the will of God in his governance of the natural or political world or as things permitted in our ultimate best interest. 

How often has God sent some difficulty and tribulation into your life and you look back on it as a good blessing that prevented you from some failure of obedience or made you more godly and trustful of the Lord? Cowper, who himself had terrible burdens in his life wrote in his hymn of 1774: 
 

Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take, the clouds ye so much dread
Are great with mercy and shall break with blessing on your head. 

Judge not the Lord by feeble sense but trust him for his grace
Behind a frowning providence he hides his smiling face. 

His purposes will ripen fast unfolding every hour
The bud has left a bitter taste but sweet will be the flower

3. You better not dismiss this aspect of Divine truth. Every Christian has his share of exceptions to the rule of unrestrained blessing of God upon every believer and to be unprepared is to repeat the whole painful reorientation of his expectations that Job experienced in the 42 chapters of the Book of Job recording his saga. Sickness, debilitating disease, death of our loved ones, loss of our valuables and precious possessions, disappointment with careers, accidents are just some of the things that we might have to deal with. 

III. BUT THERE ARE SOME IMPORTANT THINGS THAT I THINK WE OUGHT TO KEEP IN MIND TO PUT THESE NEGATIVES IN PERSPECTIVE. 

1. First, we are a people of eternity and we are taught that all these things will be "made up" to us in eternity to come. Romans 8: 28 probably includes this. The "crowns" we are said to wear in heaven according to Revelation probably signify this as well as other things and the rewards for "conquering" in Revelation 21: 7-8 surely include this. 

We sometimes find it hard to understand the way in which these things will be made up to us but we try. It is a hard thing for us in our earth-boundedness to understand literally and definitively any of the blessings of heaven but to not even try and to say: "I'd rather have my blessing here and now in a comfortable life and give up a little of the blessings of heaven" is a partial and/or a temporary denial of our Christian faith. It is a very serious mistake. 

2. Furthermore, we recognize that God has given us a capacity to endure difficulty and trouble in a way that makes us ennobled and sensitive to spiritual values that is totally opposite to the way in which the same troubles usually turn unregenerate persons into broken, bitter people. Look at that aged and saintly survivor of great tribulation and adversity in any age and see the saint of God ennobled by the Holy Spirit: Look at an Isaiah, a Jeremiah, a Paul who had such a rich anticipation of heaven, a Polycarp (the disciple of John) who said when it was insisted that he deny Christ upon pain of death: With magnificent dignity and nobility he answered: "80 and 6 years have I been his servant and he has shown me love and mercy and has done me no wrong. How can I deny my Savior and King?" Look at the thousands who have been confronted with death since his time and have willingly, nobly given their lives. Consider the missionaries martyred by the Auca Indians only a half a century ago who had just before their last plane flight that very day sung together and meant what they sang with all their hearts: 
 

We rest on thee, our shield and out defender; 
We go not forth alone to face the foe; 
Strong in thy strength, Safe in thy keeping tender, 
We rest on thee and in thy name we go." 

We rest on thee our shield and our defender
Thine is the battle, thine shall be the praise
When passing through the gates of pearly splendor
Victors -- we rest with thee through endless days
 

Look at these giants of the faith and see that capacity that God the Spirit gives his saints to endure the negatives which are his desire for their lives and with which he will ennoble them. 

3. And we rejoice that negatives -- reversals of good luck, persecutions, adversities are more manageable for us than for our peers not because of any inherent character we have, but because God has enlightened our minds and given us grace and we have a different value system: Life is not the final act of the play; Material and physical things are not the ultimate values we live for; The dollar sign is not the coinage of the kingdom to which we are attached. And I might say parenthetically, that the better we learn this Bible lesson, the less powerful adversity will be for us during our negative experiences upon the earth. 

But let us be prepared if and when we as Americans see a lessening of these good gifts and in our own individual lives when there will surely be a limitation to a greater or lesser extent of the blessing and prosperity that we experience at the present time. Are you prepared to endure what God calls you to endure with resignation and without bitterness but with joy that you may serve him in good times as well as bad? Are you prepared for this very typical Christian calling?