Exodus 7:24 - Homiletics

God allows men to seek and obtain alleviations of his judgments.

We are not intended to sit down under the judgments of God, and fold our hands, and do nothing. Whether it be war, or pestilence, or famine, or any other Heaven-sent calamity that comes upon us for our sins and those of our nation, we must beware of sinking into apathy under the infliction, and allowing it simply to run its course. God does not desire that we should show our submission in this way. He gives us thought, and ingenuity, and inventiveness, that, in every difficulty we may devise remedies, and so lessen our own and our neighbours' sufferings. Oriental nations view each calamity that comes upon them as Kismet , "fate," and make no exertions to meet it, stem it, minimise it. Christians should act otherwise. They should so far imitate the Egyptians as to set to work actively, to do what can be done in the way of relief and alleviation. God freely allows this. He did not punish the Egyptians for digging, or frustrate their efforts by preventing the water that was in the ground from filling the wells, or by rendering it undrinkable. And so he allows cholera or plague, or even ordinary sickness, which is his judgment on an individual, to be met by care, attention, cleanliness, remedial measures, and is so far from interfering against such exertions, that he blesses them, and for the most part renders them effectual.