Those who fear the LORD are secure; He will be a place of refuge for their children.
Hurricanes, earthquakes, tsunamis, roadside bombs, child molestations, rape, murder, war… Hundreds of thousands of people fall victim to “natural” disasters and the evils perpetrated by mankind every year. If you watch any television or listen to the radio or read the newspaper, they are filled with stories of violence, death and disaster. It usually seems so senseless. The Christian and the non-Christian alike will at times raise their eyes heavenward and ask the question, “Why would God allow this to happen?”
God is in control of all things. Absolutely nothing happens on this earth or in the heavenly places that God does not have control of. He never sleeps or slumbers and His eyes see all things that are now happening because God is everywhere (omnipresent). He knows everything that is going to happen in the future, and that everything will happen according to His plans and purposes (omniscience). He controls all things past, present, and future because of His unlimited and awesome power (omnipotence). These facts about God then beg the question, “If God is indeed all of these things (and He is), why does He allow ‘innocent’ people to fall prey to natural disasters and the evils of mankind”
This question has plagued most everyone else who believes in God throughout the ages. I will tell you up front, there is no cut and dried answer in Scripture for this question. There is no specific verse we can turn to and then be able to say, “Okay I get it - it all makes sense now.” But there are verses that help us somewhat understand why these events take place, even though they may still leave questions in your mind. This will have to be a continuing series to disseminate the necessary information for us to begin developing our understanding; so I will definitely not get through all of this today.
The place we must begin is looking at the character of God - and this will be a very brief look (entire books have been written, numbering hundreds and hundreds of pages, in an attempt to describe the character of God - just as He is infinite, so is His character). I will make a feeble attempt to simply describe just a few of God’s characteristics that more prominently come into play concerning the topic at hand. We have already spoken briefly concerning His omnipresence, His omniscience, and His omnipotence. Let’s look at His mercy and His justice.
Mercy and justice seem to be on the opposite ends of the spectrum. As humans, we at times will cry out for God’s mercy and at other times we will cry out for God’s justice. But we are imperfect and sinful creatures, so we selfishly want God’s mercy when we have done something wrong, and we selfishly want God’s justice when something wrong has been done to us. It all depends on which side of the equation we are on whether we want mercy or justice.
But God is perfect in every way. This includes His mercy and His justice; He is perfectly merciful and at the same time He is perfectly just. Humanly speaking this is impossible for us to wrap our finite brains around. I can understand mercy when I am the one who receives mercy, and I can understand justice when I am the one who is avenged of the wrong done to me, but I cannot understand how both qualities can be in play at the same time. But God can and does understand; which leads us to what we call the providence of God.
Hang in there with me, we still have a lot of groundwork to lay, in order to attempt to answer our initial question (Why does God allow tragedy?) but we are out of my self-allotted space for today. We’ll pick this up again next time.
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