My wife told me a true story recently about a mother whose children prayed for ice cream. Maybe everyone else has heard about it, but I'm not usually up on what is trending on Facebook, so I will give you the synopsis, in case you are like me. A mother was down to her last twenty dollars for the week, but her two children really wanted ice cream. They begged and cried as only children can do, but she insisted that they just didn't have the money. When she heard them praying for money for ice cream, she confessed to being annoyed, and she explained that God just didn't work like that; that He was busy with natural disasters, and what not. The children insisted that God said they would have the money for the ice cream and to help people with the natural disasters. When she got home, there was a completely unexpected check in the mail that was more than enough for the ice cream, and she donated the rest to the Red Cross. I loved the part of the children's prayer where they said, "God, you know we really love ice cream." Now, I am not surprised that God would answer a prayer like this. What interested me was the part that concerned my wife. She was disheartened by some apparent backlash from people who thought all the money should have gone to the Red Cross, or more to the point, "What kind of God would allow the suffering of thousands from wars, famine, disease, and disasters, but give children ice cream money?" It is a little easier to reconcile the seeming paradox, if you are the one on the ice cream money side, but if you are on the suffering side, it is a bitter question.
I’ve heard this question called, “The problem of evil,” and it goes something like this: How could God be good, if there is evil in the world? Doesn’t that make God the creator of evil? Doesn’t it make more sense to not believe in a good God? I know of people who call themselves atheists, because they cannot understand why God “took” their children. I know believers who, if they were to admit it, are mad at God for the tragedy and heartache in their lives. Most “Christian” answers to this question are not fully satisfying to me. I cannot accept that God “took” anyone who died tragically, or that any death but Jesus’ on the cross served any grand purpose in God’s plan. So what is happening? Why the injustice? Why the senseless death? Logic would tell us that, if God is all powerful, then He cannot be good. And if God is good, then He cannot be all powerful. But, that is human reasoning, and sometimes our reasoning is flawed, because we fail to consider all the variables. I don’t pretend to understand why things happen the way they do, and I’m not going to be able to answer every question. But, I think the Bible gives us some clues that might help us find some answers, and I would like to share them with you. I don’t like to talk about Facebook issues, because, at least in my mind, “issues” are usually a distraction from what God is really trying to do in your life. But I believe there are many people who are floundering, because they’ve got the wrong idea about God. In fact, a friend of mine admitted to me, recently, that he was mad at God over some health related troubles that he had been struggling with. When I explained some of the things that I am about to explain to you, he was set free in a powerful way.
Let’s start by looking at what the Bible says, and it has a lot to say on the subject of evil, as you might guess.
"The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” (John 10:10)
That’s Jesus talking about the devil, and about Himself. By the way, “abundantly” means excessively above and beyond what others have.
“Therefore, since the children share in flesh and blood, He Himself likewise also partook of the same, that through death He might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the devil.” (Hebrews 2:14)
Jesus became flesh and blood in order to break the power of death. Who had the power of death? Right. The devil.
“ . . . Because the ruler of this world has been judged.” (John 16:11)
Once again, who is Jesus talking about? The devil.
I have passed over these passages many times, without stopping to process what they are saying. In every case, Jesus is saying that the devil is the ruler of this world, and he has (or had) the power of death and destruction. I couldn’t process it, because in my mind I saw God as creator of the universe, God Almighty, and, of course, that is true. But, here is Jesus saying Satan is the ruler of this world. It didn’t really click for me, however, until I read the account, again, of Jesus being tested by Satan in the wilderness. Here is what happened:
“And he led Him up and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. And the devil said to Him, ‘I will give You all this domain and its glory; for it has been handed over to me, and I give it to whomever I wish. “Therefore if You worship before me, it shall all be Yours.’” (Luke 4:5-7)
First of all, why was this even supposed to be tempting to Jesus? Isn’t He the Son of God? Wasn’t He with the Father in the beginning? Wasn’t everything made by Him? Second of all, how did the devil get control over the kingdoms of the world? Who handed it over to him? Did God hand control of this world over to the devil? No. God gave control of this world to Adam, as you will see in this passage:
“God blessed them; and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.’” (Genesis 1:28)
I know you may have seen this passage before, but, do not get the idea that this is primarily about taking care of the environment. God told Adam and Eve to rule over the earth and subdue it. In the Hebrew it is very strong. God gave authority to man to dominate the earth; to reign over it. The word “subdue” means to bring into bondage. So, it was not God who handed over control of the earth to Satan. It was Adam.
When I explain to people that God did not cause the poverty, death and destruction that they see, there is almost always a helpful soul who will say, “Yes, but He allowed it.” For years this seemed reasonable to me, and I said it myself many times. But it never felt right coming out of my mouth. I realized that what I was saying was that God, while not actively involved, was passively complicit by standing aside and doing nothing, when He could have intervened. But that is not correct either. Let’s go back to Adam. Adam handed over rulership of the earth when he ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (a picture of the law, by the way, but that is another story). That was the sin that caused death to enter into the world. Now I know that it is hard to reconcile Satan being the ruler of the world, with an Almighty God. Psalm 24:1 says, “The earth is the Lord’s and everything in it.” So, what is going on? The truth is that Satan has never owned this world. Instead, he leveraged control of it by means of the accusation against man. There is already a death sentence on man, because of Adam’s sin. For God to intervene on behalf of man, He must do it on the basis of righteousness. To put it in simple terms, if I am handing out parking tickets, and I tear my friend’s up, just because he is my friend, and I don’t tear yours up, I am not being merciful, I am being unjust (which is the complaint against the ice cream money). Therefore, God is not too weak to help, He is restrained by His own righteous character. Is there anything God cannot do? Yes. He cannot lie. He cannot sin. He cannot be unjust.
Now, if I stopped here, it would be a very unhappy explanation. But, here comes the good part. Why did Jesus have to come to earth as a man? The Christian answer is that He had to die on the cross as a man to pay the penalty for our sin. And that is true, but there is more. Do you remember what we said about Satan being the ruler of this world? That God had given Adam authority over the earth, but he had forfeited the authority to the devil? Well, guess who took it back! Let me summarize this for you:
Death and destruction reign on earth, not because of God, but because Satan is the ruler of this world, and his purpose is to kill, steal, and destroy. He wants nothing more than to cause as much tragedy, sickness, pain, and misery as he can, to make it as unjust as he can, and to blame it all on God. God never created evil, but, out of love, He created man (and woman) with a free will, and gave them rulership over the earth He created. When Adam gave up his inheritance, God sent His own Son to give His life to win it back.
[Did you know that evil is not a thing that has been created, it is simply the absence of God? It is the same way with light and heat. Darkness is not a thing, it is merely the absence of light. Cold is simply the absence of heat.]
To understand why all this is actually good news in the here and now, and not just in a future heaven, let’s go back to the original story. Did God answer the children’s prayer for ice cream money because they were especially good? I don’t think so. It sounds like they were whining and crying for ice cream, when their mom had told them, “No.” Did He answer it because they were especially needy? No. Mom was just a little short of cash for the week. She was not desperate. He answered their prayer, because they were His children . . . And they believed it.
God comes to your aid, not on the basis of your own goodness, or somebody’s sense of what is fair, or what you think you deserve. He “blesses” you, in the truest sense of the word, because of Jesus. God looks at you and sees His child. But, what do you see? You are the deciding factor. Remember that you received Christ Jesus by grace through faith. Everything else you receive from Him will be by grace through faith. The grace is God’s part, through Jesus. The faith is your part, and that is truly just a matter of you seeing yourself as His beloved child. Don’t see yourself as a debtor anymore, but know that He has already nailed every sin to the cross and canceled your debt. He has torn up the charges against you, because Jesus has already paid them!
“But Jesus called the children to Him and said, ‘Let the little children come to Me and do not hinder them! For the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. Truly I tell you, if anyone does not receive the kingdom of God like a little child, he will never enter it.’” (Luke 18:16,17)