PERSPECTIVES
By: Sy A common argument is that since God is all powerful and all loving, that there should be no evil in the world if He truly exists. The situation is much more complicated than that. In the beginning, God made everything including people. God made people special and in His image. One day, Eve, the first woman, ate fruit from the tree that God told them not to eat from. This is the only thing God had said not to do, but they did it anyway. Eve got Adam, the first man, to eat some as well. They then had realized their mistake and hid from God, but you can’t hide from God. God said that there would now be pain death, dangers, and animals would fear people. This is how evil got introduced to the world. The question remains, “If God can tell the future, then why did he put that tree in the garden?” The answer is simple. God wanted us to love Him. For us to truly love Him, then there would also have to be a way for us to not love Him. Eating the fruit from that one tree was sinning against God. Adam and Eve had been told that they could be powerful like God if they had eaten the fruit. They put themselves before God. They did not become powerful because it was a lie from a serpent. We have all sinned against God most simply obvious by looking at the Ten Commandments. Therefore, there is evil in the world. It is all our faults, not God’s. God does not have to be non-existent for there to be evil in the world. By: JT Suffering exists in the world today, not because God allows it, but because of the collective human sin that occur every second in our world today. When God made Adam and Eve, he blessed them with the gift of free choice and they, like us, made a mess of their choices and let evil into the world. Now, God is all powerful meaning that he could destroy evil and sin as whole with a single thought, so why doesn’t he? That would mean that the free choice that he gives all people would be worthless. If you went through life where you were led by the hand and any mistake you made made no impact or had no consequence, what value would your life have or what would you ever learn. God is a loving father who hates to see us suffering, but it is not His fault that it exists, it is our fault and our choices that make it possible for there to be suffering. By: Devon To answer this question we’ll expound upon the following points;
Our Heavenly Father deals with us, His children, in ways that are not unlike we as earthly parents deal with our children here in the world. As parents, we know it is not wise for us to remove any possibility of suffering from the lives of our children. If children get everything they want and are protected from every disappointment and trial they will be spoiled and unprepared to deal with life as adults. Sometimes God allows us to suffer in order to get our attention. Rarely does a person ever become closer to God, learn to lean on Him more and trust Him more fully, during times of peace and prosperity. It is when we experience times of suffering or hardships that we are far more likely to draw near to God. C.S. Lewis said it like this, “Pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pain: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.” Also, it is imperative that we know and remember that if we want to live in a world where love is possible for us, we must live in a world where free choice is granted to us. In a world where we are given the freedom to choose between good and evil, people will sometimes make evil choices that will cause suffering. However, if we did not have freedom of choice, we would not be able to experience genuine love. Without the freedom to choose between good and evil, right and wrong, we would be robotic, operating on instinct alone and therefore incapable of being able to give or receive love. God wants us to be free to choose whether or not we will accept and return the love He gives us. By: R. T.
Why, oh why, is there suffering in the world? It’s ugly and painful, heartbreaking and destructive, it brings sadness, hopelessness and anger. It just doesn’t make sense why a loving God allows all of this heartache. Let’s draw ourselves back to a larger view of suffering. How did it start and why? God created a perfect world and created perfect humans to live in it. When Eve chose to disobey her Creator and let Satan deceive her, this is the moment sin entered the world and this is what allows suffering to exist. Everything changed from perfection to approaching disaster. Satan brought this disaster upon us maliciously and purposefully. This is his plan for you, to bring pain and agony to your life in every way he can devise. (1Peter 5:8 Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.) God only wants to give you peace and hope, (Jeremiah 29:11 For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the LORD, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.) but we want to shake our fists at God and angrily convict Him with our hearts (Jeremiah 17:9 "The heart is deceitful above all things, And desperately wicked; Who can know it?), “How can You allow this!” We prefer a God that we can hold accountable and in turn bring Him down to our level, “Guilty!” We also believe He isn’t so powerful and amazing because He can’t seem to stop all this hideous suffering, He’s ineffective and therefore not worth believing in. Pride is revealed in these wrong views of God and suffering. (Psalms 10:4 The wicked in his proud countenance does not seek God; God is in none of his thoughts.) We are so very prideful, believing we deserve an easy life, a painless existence, a utopia of all that is good and pleasant. Suffering is not good or evil in itself, it doesn’t exist on its own but dwells in the hearts of sinful men, born of Satan and delivered by us to one another with indifference. But God uses these ugly painful experiences for great good. (Romans 8:28 And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.) Pain draws us inward causing us to ask why this is happening, we want to know how this serves any purpose. We wrestle with our very soul, wondering if God caused this. “Why me? Why this? Please take this ugliness away!” Suffering points us toward God and urges us to make a decision of belief or allow ourselves to suffocate in unhappiness, self-pity, and bitterness. Satan is claiming you! Taking possession of you fully. He is deceiving you! (2 Corinthians 11:3 But I fear, lest somehow, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, so your minds may be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.) Inside what we really want is comfort, nearness to God and nearness to someone who can save us. When something is tempered, like metal or chocolate, something is blended into it to bring it hardness or a more desired consistency. Suffering is God working in you, tempering you. When suffering is added to men it brings about something better in the end, something stronger and more beautiful. Soldiers are tempered by combat, it gives them wisdom, strength, courage and the will to prevail and win against the enemy. God is tempering us, adding some of His Son, our Suffering Savior, to make us stronger and so much more courageous. (Psalms 66:10 For You, O God, have tested us; You have refined us as silver is refined.) When we realize God is real and there waiting for us, we will want to snuggle up to Him and begin to learn who He is and why we exist. We were created for His pleasure and to serve Him. Suffering brings us to His feet in humbleness and love, eager to know Him with all our heart. (1 Peter 5:10 But may the God of all grace, who called us to His eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after you have suffered a while, perfect, establish, strengthen, and settle you.) God uses suffering in the world for good even though Satan means it for evil. Satan HATES you! He wants to destroy every cell in your body and drive you to an anger filled grave without God. Don’t allow him to win, be refined by God like gold and let Him temper you to become a mighty soldier for Christ! (James 1:2-4 2 My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, 3 knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. 4 But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.) God is not wanting to save you from suffering but to save your soul from eternal torment. His great wisdom and love, even though sometimes painful, will change your suffering into eternal life if you will allow it. (John 3:16-17 16 "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. 17 "For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.) PERSPECTIVES
By: Josiah “Why would a good God send people to Hell?” The question reads. It is a great question, but is one of the many questions pertaining to God, and things in the Bible that can be answered with confidence. First thing is first, the sin of man. God, originally, created a beautiful lush world. No living thing (mankind and animal kind) died. When God made the world and the rest of the universe He called it very good, it was the way He meant it to be. God warned Adam, the first man not to eat of one particular tree as recorded in Genesis 2:17, “but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” This one command shows us that God loved Adam enough to give him free will. But when Adam disobeyed this command, ate of the tree, and sinned against God–he was not “good” anymore because of his sin. Genesis 3:17-19, (17) Then to Adam He said, “Because you have heeded the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree of which I commanded you, saying, ‘You shall not eat of it’: “Cursed is the ground for your sake; In toil you shall eat of it All the days of your life. (18) Both thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you, And you shall eat the herb of the field. (19) In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread Till you return to the ground, For out of it you were taken; For dust you are, And to dust you shall return.” Adam got what he deserved after what he had done and now all people everywhere die. This is because every one of us, except Jesus, has disobeyed the perfect good God. So how good and perfect is God? Mark 10:18, So Jesus said to him, “Why do you call Me good? No one is good but One, that is, God. Since God is so good and perfect, He also judges perfectly. Since we are not good we are bad, there is no in between. God’s judgment of sin is death and Hell. And since all of us have sinned we all fall short of God’s glory deserving our punishment due us. Since God judges perfectly He cannot just let imperfection by it has to be dealt with. Does God have authority over us, to do what He wants? Absolutely! See God made everything in the universe, He made everything around us and He made us. Not only that, He provides His planet, His animals, plants and minerals for us. He provides us with His own water. He literally owns us! He has every right to do whatever He wants with us! So God is perfect and He is in complete control of us, but He gives us free will and that is why we can choose what we do in this world, and why we can choose to follow after Him or not. But this good God also loves us, 2 Peter 3:9, The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering towards us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance. So He (God) does not want us to perish, or go to Hell, but it must be done if we do not repent. God does not want us to go to Hell so much that He made a way for us to be saved from that punishment. He sent His son Jesus Christ, God in the flesh, to die and take that punishment we deserve. And if you believe and have faith in His son that He rose from the dead and repent of your sins you will be saved. By: Sy God doesn’t exactly send people to hell. We choose to do so. If we sin once we are unable to be with God. God gave us a great world, and we ruined it. It isn’t possible not to sin, which is why God sent Jesus to suffer for our sins. God desires to be with each and every one of us. By: JT God gives us a lifetime of opportunity to accept His free gift of mercy. Without it He sees us as the dirty disgusting rotten sinners that we really are and as such we deserve hell, eternal punishment. Just as a felon convicted and proven of committing murder deserves punishment so do we. If we accept God’s gift of mercy, He sees us as His perfect creation, blameless and without sin. We owe thanks and praise to Jesus for giving us an opportunity to be free from evil. By: Devon There are only two options for our existence when our earthly lives are over; eternity with God, which takes place in Heaven, or eternity without God, which takes place in Hell. God makes Himself known to us, and available to us in our lives here on earth. If a person rejects God during this time, then God won’t force that person to spend eternity with Him when this earthly existence is over. Therefore it is the free choice of each individual person whether to spend eternity with God, or without Him. Although God makes Himself known to us, He does not force Himself on us. That would not be loving. Real love cannot be forced. If a person rejects God during their lifetime, the most loving thing God can do is allow that person to have the eternal existence of their choice; eternity without God. While God is loving, He is also just. He cannot allow sin to go unpunished, that wouldn’t be just. Without hell, justice would never be served to those persons whose crimes went unpunished during this lifetime, people like Hitler, and Joseph Mengela By: R. T.
This statement is wrong in three ways. First it denies the freedom God has given us in making decisions. Secondly it denies the sovereignty of God being ruler over everything. Thirdly it mis-characterizes God as being mean or uncaring instead of righteous and just. Let’s look at all three of these wrong assumptions. 1 - God has given us the freedom to choose Him or to do things our own way. Revelation 3:20 says: "Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with Me.” If we do not decide to choose God and His salvation through Jesus Christ then we have ourselves chosen to go to hell. It’s just that simple. We are free to choose, we choose the wrong path and therefore choose to go to hell on our own. 2 - The sovereignty of God is over all things, the earth and universe, over how to judge us because He made us and gave specific rules to follow. Deuteronomy 4:39 says: "Therefore know this day, and consider it in your heart, that the LORD Himself is God in heaven above and on the earth beneath; there is no other.” If we do not follow His will which is clearly and plainly described in scripture, then we have to know without a doubt that God will do what is necessary in accordance with righteousness. We cannot criticize God for what we ourselves do. 3 - God is such a great and caring God that He sent His most treasured Son to die on the cross for us. This gives us the opportunity to make things right with Him, to find that path to righteousness and salvation and to take part in living eternally with our wonderful God in heaven. Romans 8:38-39 says: “For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” If you choose to do things Gods way then you cannot be separated from Him! How wonderful is that! If we don’t accept the free gift from Him, then we have chosen to place ourselves under the judgement of a righteous God and sadly, buy our own ticket to hell. Romans 10:8-11 says: “But what does it say? "The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart" (that is, the word of faith which we preach): that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. For the Scripture says, "Whoever believes on Him will not be put to shame." This tells us how our loving God has made a way for us into heaven and to completely avoid hell. It’s not hard, just confess that Jesus is your Lord and Savior! Philippians 3:8-9 says: “Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith;” All life and actions in live come down to one thing, what is most important above everything? This one thing is your relationship with God and everything else we concern ourselves with is of very little importance, it’s just rubbish. Choose today to accept the free gift of salvation that God is offering you and don’t go to hell by ignoring His love and desire to save you. God can know the future without causing it. As an example, you can know the answer to a math problem even if you didn't invent the question. You can give a child the choice between different kinds of cookies to eat, you won't know which one they will choose, but God does! He knows the future. Did this choice the child made mean they didn't have the full opportunity to make the choice? Not at all! There were various cookies to select from and freely chose the cookie they wanted. It's the same way with God. He knows what we prefer and what choices we will make but still gives us the opportunity to make that choice of our free will.
We know that God is Omniscient, He knows all things. This is shown to us through many scriptures, here are just a few: Psalms 147:5, Psalms 139:1-4, Isaiah 40:28. Your choices are never pointless, in fact they are so very important! You can choose to do right or wrong, you can choose to study hard in school or allow yourself failure, you can choose to wear red or blue. Whatever choices arise in your life, it's still your choice to select one or the other. We believe the most important choice you will ever make is to believe in Jesus Christ or not. What will you choose? |
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