By John Thiel, mp3

Psalms 34:14 Depart from evil, and do good; seek peace, and pursue it. 15 The eyes of the LORD [are] upon the righteous, and his ears [are open] unto their cry. 16 The face of the LORD [is] against them that do evil, to cut off the remembrance of them from the earth. 17 [The righteous] cry, and the LORD heareth, and delivereth them out of all their troubles. 18 The LORD [is] nigh unto them that are of a broken heart; and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit. 19 Many [are] the afflictions of the righteous: but the LORD delivereth him out of them all.

“Many are the afflictions of the righteous: but the LORD delivereth him out of them all.” The righteous are afflicted, but the face of the Lord is against them that do evil, to cut off the remembrance of them from the earth. On this planet there are many different reasons for afflictions. It can be because the Lord is against people and He is letting afflictions come their way and destroy them; but there are also afflictions for the righteous. We want to assess the reasons for our sufferings and afflictions. Because afflictions and difficulties come people’s way, they sometimes judge, We must be very bad, we must be wicked. Someone has spoken to me not so long ago that because of a certain problem in somebody’s life they thought there must be a reason for that, that there must be an Achan in the camp. Read the rest of this entry →