My God and My Country

Word of God

Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth from the mouth of God

Matthew 4:4

The Book of Ezra 2:3

3 He hath cut off in his fierce wrath all the horn of Israel: he hath drawn back his right hand from before the enemy, and there was kindled in Jacob like a flame of fire, which devoured round about.

Brethren:

To those who know how to value God’s favour nothing appears more dreadful than his anger; corrections in love are easily borne, but rebukes in love wound deeply(See Psalm 39:11; Proverbs 9:8). It is God’s wrath that burns against Jacob like a flaming fire and it is a consuming fire; it devours round about, devours all her honours, all her comforts. This is the fury that is poured out like fire, like the fire and brimstone which were rained upon Sodom and Gomorrah; but it was their sin that kindled this fire. And it is sin that God righteously judges that removes His providence. God is such a tender Father to his children that we may be sure he is never angry with them but when they provoke him, and give him cause to be angry; nor is he ever angry more than there is cause for. God’s covenant with them was that if they would obey his voice he would be an enemy to their enemies, , and he had been so as long as they kept close to him. However when they stray from His voice He will act in a manner as He would to their enemies. (See Leviticus 26:14-17).

They had, in their pride, lifted up their horn against God, and therefore justly will God cut off their horn. He disabled them to resist and oppose their enemies; he turned back their right hand, so that they were not able to follow the blow which they gave nor to ward off the blow which was given them. What can their right hand do against the enemy when God draws it back, and withers it, as he did Jeroboam’s? Thus was the beauty of Israel cast down, when a people famed for courage were not able to stand their ground nor make good their post.

Now, God is not really an enemy to his people, no, not when he is angry with them and corrects them in anger. We may be sorely displeased against our dearest friends and relations, whom yet we are far from having an enmity to. But sometimes he is as an enemy to them, when all his providences concerning them seem in outward appearance to have a tendency to their ruin, when every thing made against them and nothing for them. But, blessed be God, Christ is our peace, our peacemaker, who has slain the enmity, and in him we may agree with our adversary, which it is our wisdom to do, since it is in vain to contend with him, and he offers us advantageous conditions of peace