Aurel Gheorghe Supporter

The Bible tells that evil started in heaven when Lucifer became Satan (God’s adversary) and led a third of angels into rebellion (Rev 12:7-9). Satan also led Adam and Eve into sin. 

God endowed all created beings with the ability to reason and make choices - although He knew that the gift of free-will carries a big risk: that one day someone would rebel and drive the world into the chaos and lawlessness that we are witnessing today. Nevertheless, God cannot permit outcomes to dictate His actions. Rather, He acts according to His will. If He manipulated circumstance to bring about His desired outcome, there could be no free-will and God would be a dictator. 

Into beginning everything God created was good and very good (Gen 1:31). The sin however, changed everything - it distorted God’s creation and placed His character on trial (Gen 3:4, 5). The earth became an arena for the universal conflict, and “we have become a spectacle to the world, to angels, and to men” (1 Cor 4:9). In the end God will be victorious and His character will ultimately be vindicated (John 16:33; 1 John 5:4; 1 Cor 15:57; Rev 19:1,2). 

However, the legitimate question still linger: why God allows so much suffering and how much longer? The short answer is because God knows best! Then we must remember that God is not subject to our time limitations: “with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day” (2 Peter 3:8). Also, God delays His judgement on the devil and the wicked out of His awesome love “not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance” (2 Peter 3:9).

"What if God, although fully intending to show [the awfulness of] His wrath and to make known His power and authority, has tolerated with much patience the vessels (objects) of [His] anger which are ripe for destruction?" (Rom 9:22 Amplified Version).

May 21 2018 • 1 response • Vote Up • Share • Report

Tim Maas Supporter Retired Quality Assurance Specialist with the U.S. Army

The late C. S. Lewis, a Christian commentator whom I highly respect, discussed this subject in his excellent book, Mere Christianity, which is fully viewable for free online at http://www.ntslibrary.com/PDF%20Books/Mere%20Christianity%20-%20Lewis.pdf. 

Although we as Christians may long for the type of direct divine intervention mentioned in the question, we must also remember (as Lewis said) that "when the Author walks onstage, the play is over." God alone knows when the gospel will have been fully disseminated, and the number of those who will be saved (including not only "the fullness of the Gentiles", but also God's chosen people Israel) will have been reached (Romans 11:25-32). As terrible as conditions may currently seem, the fact that He has not yet put an end to them, or intervened to deliver the redeemed from them, is in fact an act and sign of His mercy toward those who have yet to be saved.

As Lewis noted, " I wonder whether people who ask God to interfere openly and directly in our world quite realize what it will be like when He does. When that happens, it is the end of the world....God is going to invade, all right: but what is the good of saying you are on His side then, when you see the whole natural universe melting away like a dream and something else -- something it never entered your head to conceive -- comes crashing in; something so beautiful to some of us and so terrible to others that none of us will have any choice left? For this time it will God without disguise; something so overwhelming that it will strike either irresistible love or irresistible horror into every creature. It will be too late then to choose your side. 

"There is no use saying you choose to lie down when it has become impossible to stand up. That will not be the time for choosing; it will be the time when we discover which side we really have chosen, whether we realized it before or not. Now, today, this moment, is our chance to choose the right side. God is holding back to give us that chance. It will not last for ever. We must take it or leave it.”

May 20 2018 • 2 responses • Vote Up • Share • Report