A common question posed towards Christians is “Why would an all loving, all knowing God allow evil to exist and run rampant?” Or “If an all-loving God did exist, why would He allow people to be poor, children to be born with birth defects, war, violence, hunger, etc?” As a Christian, I’ve personally been challenged by this question in my walk with the Lord. It can sometimes be difficult to reconcile God’s love and promises for us, yet we see “good people” suffer or wars and acts of violence prompting us to ask where God is in all of this. Many of us can agree with this sentiment or maybe we’ve been challenged by a friend, co-worker, or family member that doesn’t agree with the God of the Bible.
This question isn’t always the easiest to answer, but the Bible does show us that the current world we live in is fallen from what it should be. If we’re bold enough to seek the truth in God’s Word, I believe He will shed light on this for us. To begin, God created everything in a perfect state – including humans (Gen. 1:31, NKJV). However, once mankind disobeyed God in the Garden of Eden, we and the earth were cursed and are awaiting the day to be returned to our “original” state (Gen. 3:11-19, Rom. 8:18-23, NKJV). Until that time, the world we live in now is of our creation.
We chose to reject God and decided to do things our way and are reaping the consequences of that decision. The violence, prejudice, war, hunger, natural disasters, diseases, and death our current world experiences are of our choosing. This is an important fact to note because many skeptics and atheists alike believe that somehow it is God’s responsibility to “fix this mess;” however, based on the previous passages, we can see that this mess is, in fact, our fault. Despite this fact, God promises to fix this, and that’s where His grace (giving us what we don’t deserve) and mercy (not giving us what we deserve) really shine.
So, yes, we humans are at fault here, but the Bible also tells us that there are evil unseen forces that want nothing more than to destroy humanity and add to or even cause this suffering and evil. We know of these beings as fallen angels, demons, and Satan, the “god of this world,” who use everything within their disposal to spread hate, strife, conflict, sickness, and death – everything God didn’t create (Eph. 6:12, NKJV). The Bible shows us that, although evil is real and prevalent in this world, there is an all-loving, all-knowing God who gives us the free will to choose or reject Him.
If we choose to reject Him, then He allows us to live life the way we want since He doesn’t force himself upon anyone; He wants to be worshiped and have a genuine relationship with those who truly love Him (John 4:23-24, NKJV). The downside to this, however, is that the Bible makes it clear that as we are fallen beings, living life the “way we want” means to live a life of unrepentant sin.
The Bible is clear that sin ultimately leads to death which is physical and is also an eternal separation from God, but the good news is that someone has paid for this penalty in our stead. “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom. 6:23, NKJV). If you do choose Him, you get the power to rise above the evil of this world because there’s someone that already overcame it for us (Luke 10:19, John 16:33, NKJV).
“For whatever is born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith. Who is he who overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?” 1 John 5:4-5, NKJV
This is an updated edition of a post originally published on himitsustudy.com
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