Can a Worm Ward Off the Blow of the Almighty?

It is fruitless and futile to strive, to contest or contend

with God. No man has ever got anything, by muttering

or murmuring under the hand of God--except it has

been more frowns, blows, and wounds. Those who will

not lie quiet and still, when mercy has tied them with

silken cords--justice will put them in iron chains!

If golden fetters will not hold you, iron fetters shall!

If Jonah will vex and fret and fling; justice will fling

him overboard, to cool him, and quell him, and keep

him prisoner in the whale's belly until he is vomited

up, and his spirit made quiet before the Lord.

What you get by struggling and grumbling--you may

put in your eye, and weep it out when you are done--

"But am I the one they are provoking? declares the

Lord. Are they not rather harming themselves, to their

own shame? Therefore this is what the Sovereign Lord

says: My anger and My wrath will be poured out on this

place, on man and beast, on the trees of the field and

on the fruit of the ground, and it will burn and not be

quenched." Jeremiah 7:19-20. "Do we provoke the Lord

to jealousy? Are we stronger than He?" 1 Cor. 10:22.

Zanchy observes these two things from these words:

1. That it is foolish to be provoking God to wrath,

because He is stronger than we.

2. That though God be stronger than we, yet there are

those who do provoke Him to wrath. And certainly there

are none who do more to provoke Him than those who

fume and fret when His hand is upon them!

Though the cup be bitter--yet it is put into your hand by

your Father! Though the cross be heavy--yet He who has

laid it on your shoulders will bear the heaviest end of it

Himself! Why, then, should you mutter? Shall bears and

lions take blows and knocks from their keepers; and will

you not take a few blows and knocks from the keeper of

Israel? Why should the clay contend with the potter, or

the creature with his Creator, or the servant with his

master, or weakness with strength, or a poor nothing

creature with an omnipotent God? Can stubble stand

before the fire? Can chaff abide before the whirlwind?

Can a worm ward off the blow of the Almighty?

A froward and impatient spirit under the hand of God will

but add chain to chain, cross to cross, yoke to yoke, and

burden to burden. The more men tumble and toss in their

feverish fits, the worse they distemper; and the longer it

will be before the cure be effected. The easiest and the

surest way of cure, is to lie still and quiet until the poison

of the distemper be sweat out. Where patience has its

perfect work, there the cure will be certain and easy.

When a man has his broken leg set, he lies still and quiet,

and so his cure is easily and speedily wrought. But when

a horse's leg is set, he frets and flings, he flounces and

flies out, unjointing it again and again, and so his cure is

the more difficult and tedious. Those Christians who, under

the hand of God, are like the horse or mule--fretting and

flinging--will but add to their own sorrows and sufferings,

and put the day of their deliverance further off.