The Earthborn Problems Confronting the Servant of God -- By: Herman A. Hoyt

Journal: Grace Journal
Volume: GJ 14:2 (Spring 1973)
Article: The Earthborn Problems Confronting the Servant of God
Author: Herman A. Hoyt


The Earthborn Problems Confronting the Servant of God

Herman A. Hoyt

President, Grace Theological Seminary

“For a great door, and effectual is opened unto me, and there are many adversaries” (1 Corinthians 16:9)

This discussion will center in the earthborn problems of the servant of God. As a proper approach to the subject, several things need to be said at the outset: first, something about definition; second, something about description; and third, something about diagnosis.

The definition of a problem may be stated as follows: It is a difficult situation involving uncertainty of solution. In the strictest sense of a definition, this cannot be true for the child of God. For the resources of God are sufficient for every difficulty and there are no uncertainties. But in the more relative sense of the definition, a sphere in which most of us move because we fail to appropriate fully the resources of God and to apprehend clearly the truth of God, it is painfully true. There are difficulties and the solution seems uncertain.

In attempting a description of problems, several characteristics deserve attention. Problems are earthborn and reside essentially in people. This explains why men have sought isolation from society as a solution to their problems. Usually they discovered that the seat of their problems centered in a person from whom they could not retreat. Problems are inevitable in a world of sinning people. It was sin that introduced difficulty and uncertainty into the stream of human relations. It is therefore to be expected that problems will be the course of human experience until the factor of sin is removed from the scene by the grace of God.

It is therefore an inescapable conclusion that problems will constitute the obstacles through which the servant of God must make progress. The servant of God must associate with people where the problems center. These people possess the sinful nature which produces the problems. There is no such thing as turning back in the path appointed of God. So, to make progress, the servant of God must confront the problem and find a solution. It is therefore a comforting fact of history

to the servant of God that problems are not insuperable. With renewed assurance the servant of God can move forward, knowing that “our sufficiency is from God” (2 Cor 3:5) and that we can do all things through Christ who strengthens us (Phil 4:13).

Precise diagnosis of the problems is the most important factor, perhaps, in finding the solution. ...

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