Let’s Blame God

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“…Who gives the sun for a light by day, The ordinances of the moon and the stars for a light by night, Who disturbs the sea, And its waves roar The LORD of hosts is His name,” Jeremiah 31:35

 

It’s a good thing we have someone to blame for all the evil that has come upon man. The question arises more times than we can count, “Why does a loving God allow suffering”? Those who ask this question have no concept of who God is. I’ve touched on this subject in the past and received emails contradicting my evaluation of God allowing suffering. Since so many people agree, there must be a problem with a God who will allow His Children, who He professes to love, to suffer. 

 

Pain, suffering, and death are all things we will endure at some stage of our lives. Some will continually be thrust into that arena right up until the day they die. Others will seem to endure much less, if any, suffering during this life. Still, all will experience death. So why is it that, since we were created by a loving God, He doesn’t keep us from all the suffering that continually plagues us in this life?

 

“Who being the brightness of [his] glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power,” Hebrews 1:3 The writer of Hebrews tells us that Jesus Christ holds all things together by the word of His power, and if we believe that statement, and we should if we are born again and following Christ, why then is there so much evil in the world? If God the Father and God the Son are on the job, why do people suffer daily, many remain in chronic pain. People die seemingly for no good reason. Cancer, for example, is a major player in the cause of death of human beings. Along with cancer there are other innumerable diseases causing so much pain and death the question becomes unending, “Why would a loving God allow so much suffering”? All this is so mind boggling when we are confronted with the idea of a God that loves us and created us in His image, and then came into the world and died for us. What is going on?

 

First of all let’s remember that “All scripture is God breathed”, 2 Timothy 3:16a. Now when we take that quote seriously and literally we can read the rest of the Bible without any doubts as to its inerrancy. God is perfect and so His word is perfect. In that sense we know that all the scriptures were placed in the Bible for our profit and edification. Now that we have a base to begin from let’s take a look at the very first verse of the Book of Genesis. “In the beginning God created the Heavens and the earth.” Genesis 1:1. As Christians, we should have no problem believing that this statement was given by inspiration of God and recorded by His servant, Moses. At the end of the sixth day when God’s creation process was complete, He made the following proclamation “And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, [it was] very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day,” Genesis 1:31. In that scripture we find the phrase “very good”, but it could also be translated from the Greek “exceedingly excellent”.

 

In God’s eyes His creation was perfect. Since God Himself saw His creation as perfect who are we to question or rebuke God? In that span of time before the fall there was no death or decay on earth at all. All of creation was without blemish, no death, no suffering, no pain, no want, and no remorse. If a medical doctor would have been available to do a physical examination of our early parents, his diagnoses of Adam and Eve’s physical health most certainly would have been “perfect health”, especially when compared to the deplorable state of health their descendents suffer from today.

 

Ah, but what happened next will explain a lot in regards to “why and how” a loving God allows suffering. If this were a stage play, at this point we would be introduced to a slippery character as he sauntered out onstage. Lucifer entered the picture and the first thing he did was to toss out a little hook with a lie attached just to see if Eve would bite. Eve took the bait hook, line, and sinker. Both Adam and his wife Eve decided to rebel against their loving God who created them and walked with them in that beautiful Garden in the cool of the day. Why did they rebel? God, when He created Adam and took Eve from a part of Adam, gave them both an ability to choose, to make choices for themselves. After a little prompting by Lucifer they made the decision to eat from the one tree God commanded them not to eat from. It was a command from their Creator God, not a request or a suggestion. That was their only restriction, the only off limits sign in the whole Garden.

 

Here in America as well as around the world people have rules and regulations, laws to live by. Why? For the most part they are for our own good, but we have the choice to live under those rules or to ignore them. Some chose to ignore them and live as they wish and by doing so they must suffer the consequences of their rebellion. Adam and Eve realized the consequences of their decision almost immediately. Right after their rebellion God made them leave the Garden He had created for their pleasure. They brought that condemnation on themselves, and they knew it.

 

Sometime after the fall of man, God gave man a blueprint on how to live. The Book of Leviticus in the Old Testament is that blueprint. It is filled with dos and don’ts, but do we heed God and His admonitions? If you study Leviticus knowing that “All scripture is God breathed” you’ll see humanity today is way off course. The Garden of Eden was an expanse large enough to contain all of God’s creation. If our first parents hadn’t rebelled against God, all humanity would now live in that Garden, without pain and suffering or death, and we’d have no need of the Book of Leviticus.

 

Yes, He gave us free will and knew the consequences of that decision, but He loves us so much He was willing to place that characteristic inside us. From Adam and Eve came the rest of humanity and all are born with the sin nature that our prehistoric parents gave us. At the very nanosecond that they rebelled, a curse came upon all of God’s creation. The universe and all its solar systems, planets and stars, every atomic molecule became cursed with the eventuality of decay. “For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now,” Romans 8:22.

 

God loved His creation and still does. He loves us so much that He allows us to choose to accept Him and His love rather than force us to love Him as if we were only robots. He gave us free will even though He knew before the foundation of the world what would happen and how He would eventually have to enter His creation and become a man so He could, as our kinsman redeemer, save us from our rebellious choice. Only a perfect God could become a perfect man so He could redeem His once perfect creation.

 

I’ve received emails from some who say God’s creation wasn’t perfect, that Adam and Eve had been given the propensity to sin, and so God is responsible for all the death and decay, and all the pain and suffering. Of course, this would give us someone to blame besides ourselves. Actually what we see is our God creating man with the ability to make informed choices. God gave man knowledge then warned him about the one pitfall that would lead to death. The world God made and everything in it was perfect. Adam and Eve made the wrong choice. Consequently what we see today among men are wrong decisions being made daily that lead to strife, hatred, remorse, pain, suffering, yes and even death.  

 

Suffering in this world is now a foregone conclusion; we will only escape all the evil this world has to offer (if the Lord tarries) through our death if we have accepted Christ as our Saviour. Interestingly, all the pain and suffering that is so prevalent here on earth, and that so many rush to escape from, will also be fully realized in Hell, and the Lake of Fire. That suffering my dear readers is for eternity, “Evil pursueth sinners: but to the righteous good shall be repayed,” Proverbs 13:21.

 

For all those individuals who continue to question why we need to suffer and live in pain if we have a God who loves us, the answer is “Because He loves us”. We, not God, are the transgressors in this horrible drama we see continually being played out on the world scene. We are the sinners who have fallen short of His glory. As such, we are the ones who will endure suffering and pain and ultimately death. Death isn’t the finale it’s the beginning. It’s the beginning of eternity for us humans, and where we chose to spend that eternity is also up to us. Choices, choices, choices.

 

Without sin entering into God’s perfect plan there would never have been suffering. How can we blame God for all the evil here on planet earth? It seems blaming God has now become commonplace among men and women of all backgrounds, and because He is to blame let’s eliminate Him from our culture. If it weren’t for God we’d be a lot better off. So they think. Hear the words once again from the writer of Hebrews as he gives us a picture of our Lord’s awesome power, “Upholding all things by the word of His power.” God Himself is holding all things together. The secular scientists have no idea what holds everything together, they call it cosmic glue. Jesus, our Creator God is holding all things together, everything is in His hands. One of these days, in the not so distant future, He will let lose His grip. Until that day comes we believers are admonished to hold fast to the faith, to occupy ‘til He comes. We are to be “always ready” for His imminent return.

 

At some point in our lives we will suffer through pain and sorrow, and yes some of us will even taste death, but our death will only happen once if we are believers in Christ. Those who don’t know Jesus Christ as their personal Savior and Lord will suffer what’s known in the Bible as the second death which is spiritual death. They are the only ones who will suffer the torment of pain and anguish that they suffered here on earth but very greatly magnified because they will understand at that point that they could have avoided that second death if only they had believed in the one God sent. 

 

If only… 

 

God bless you all,

 

Ron Graham

 

 

 

 

 

 

Email:  twotug@embarqmail.com