I

People often worry about and are fearful of the trials of God,

yet at all times they are living in Satan’s snare,

and they’re living in perilous territory

in which they’re attacked and abused by Satan—

yet they know not fear, and are unperturbed.

What is going on? What is going on?

Man’s faith in God is only limited to the things he can see.

He has not the slightest appreciation of God’s love and concern for man,

or of His tenderness and consideration toward man.

But for a little trepidation and fear about God’s trials,

judgment and chastisement, and majesty and wrath,

man has not the slightest understanding of God’s painstaking intentions.

II

At the mention of trials,

people feel as if God has ulterior motives,

and some even believe that God harbors evil designs;

they’re unaware of what God will actually do to them.

So while crying out submission to God’s sovereignty and arrangements,

they do all they can to resist and oppose

God’s sovereignty over man and arrangements for man,

for they believe that if they aren’t careful

they will be misled by God,

that if they don’t keep a grip on their own fate

then all that they have could be taken by God,

and their life could even be in imminent danger.

III

Man is in Satan’s camp,

but he never worries about being abused by Satan,

and he’s abused by Satan

but never fears being taken captive by Satan.

He keeps saying that he accepts God’s salvation,

yet has never trusted in God

or believed that God will truly save man from the claws of Satan.

If, like Job, man can submit to God’s orchestrations and arrangements,

and can give his entire being to God’s hands,

won’t man’s outcome be like Job’s—the receipt of God’s blessings?

If man can accept and submit to God’s sovereignty,

what is there to lose?

from The Word, Vol. 2. On Knowing God. God’s Work, God’s Disposition, and God Himself II