Evil is Under God’s Control

As I begin my series on God’s control of all things, including evil we must consider the evidence (as found in His book, the revealed Word, the Scripture, if you don’t agree, check the evidence). When I refer to evil I am speaking about both moral and natural evil. By moral I mean sin, such as lying, stealing, adultery, and all other ways in which people refuse to love each other and obey God. By natural evil I mean hurricanes, floods, disease- all the natural ways that death and suffering afflict mankind. What I am considering in this series, is that God rules the world in such a way that all sin remains in His ultimate control and therefore within His ultimate design and purpose.

I have read a book on a movement, mostly in America, called ‘Open Theism’ this group denies that God has full foreknowledge of the entire future. The denial of God’s foreknowledge of human and demonic choices is a mattress for the view that God is not in control of evil in the world and therefore has no purpose in them.

However, I believe that the Scripture teaches Go is in control of everything, including evil, and thus any view that suggests evil is out of God’s control, not only is wrong (or unscriptural J), but it offers no hope for a world that at times seems to spiral out of control with evil.

Let’s examine the evidence:

Does God control Calamity?

Let us consider the evidence that God controls physical evil, however keep in mind that often physical and moral evil meet, many of our pains happen because of other people or demonic forces decisions.

In Scripture humans life is seen as something God has complete authority over. He gives and takes away life. We do not have life, nor do we have any complete right over it. So it makes sense then that for God to give life is a gift, and to lose it is never an injustice on God’s part, whether it is taken at age 2 or age ninety-two.

Remember how Job reacted to losing his children at the initiation of Satan? He did not say that Satan was the ultimate cause of it. Instead he said, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return. The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD” In case we might say that Job made a mistake, the author adds these words, “In all this Job did not sin or charge God with wrong” (v22). And “In all this Job did not sin with his lips” (2:10).

In Deuteronomy 32:39, God said, “See now that I, even I, am he, and there is no god beside me; I kill and I make alive; I wound and I heal; and there is none that can deliver out of my hand.” When David impregnated Bathsheba, the Lord punished him by taking his son (2 Samuel 12:15, 18).

What about Disease?

When Moses afraid to speak God said to him, “Then the LORD said to him, “Who has made man’s mouth? Who makes him mute, or deaf, or seeing, or blind? Is it not I, the LORD? (Exodus 4:11). In other words behind all disease and disability is the ultimate will of God. Not to say that Satan is not involved- he is probably always involved in one way or another with a destructive purpose (Acts 10:38). But his power is not decisive. He cannot act without God’s permission.

That is one of the points made clear in Job’s illness. The text makes it clear that the disease came upon Job by… “So Satan went out from the presence of the LORD and struck Job with loathsome sores from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head.” Job’s wife encouraged him to curse God, but he said, “Shall we receive good from God, and shall we not receive evil?(Job 2:10)” again, the author says, “In all this Job did not sin with his lips.” (Job 2v10). That is to say, this is the correct view of God’s sovereignty over Satan. Satan is real and may have a hand in our affliction, but not the final hand, and most defiantly not the decisive hand. James makes it clear that God had a good purpose in all Job’s afflictions, “You have heard of the steadfastness of Job, and you have seen the purpose of the Lord, how the Lord is compassionate and merciful. (James 5:11)” So Satan may have been involved, but the ultimate purpose was God’s, and it was “compassionate and merciful.”

We learn this again in 2 Corinthians 12:7, where Paul talks about his thorn in the flesh as being a messenger of Satan, and yet it was given to make him more holy: “So to keep me from being too elated by the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from being too elated.” Now Satan’s goal is not Paul’s humility, therefore the purpose is God’s.

There is no reason to believe that Satan is ever out of God’s control ultimately. Mark 1:27 says about Jesus, “And they were all amazed, so that they questioned among themselves, saying, “What is this? A new teaching with authority! He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him.” And in Luke 4:36, “And they were all amazed and said to one another, “What is this word? For with authority and power he commands the unclean spirits, and they come out!” In other words no matter how real and terrible Satan and his demons are in this world, they remain subordinate to the ultimate will of God

The point of the teaching I think is in us to cause humility and hope, humility since we are so small and God so great and some things are far beyond our understanding and hope, since no matter how crazy things get, they are never out of control of a all-wise faithful, good and great heavenly Father

In the next Blog: God’s control of Natural Disasters and all other kinds of Calamities.

I am indebted to John Piper for my clarity and articulation in this: See Desiring God by John Piper.

God, Suffering and Christians.

I have been thinking about suffering. It may be that God is allowing physical suffering to sweep our world in order to shake His Church to the worldwide ravages of spiritual starvation. Our hearts break more quickly when we see a skin-draped skeleton in its mother’s arms than when we hear a missionary say: millions have never heard the gospel and are bound for hell in the wickedness of their worldliness or idolatry. Of course our heads tell us that it is much worse to be happy in this life and in torment for eternity than to be miserable only in this life. But visible earthly misery reaches our hearts more directly. Perhaps God is touching us this way in order that we might feel the horror of spiritual starvation when our heads declare: Do you weep over the suffering of these bodies now?—How much more, then, should you weep over the suffering of soul and body in eternity!

Seeing this in real life:

*An 84-year-old tribesman stands patiently in line waiting for a precious handful of cornmeal. He is only three people from the head of the line when famine strikes its final blow—he collapses and dies. His skeletal body is dragged a few yards away. And the long line shuffles forward.

*A gaunt young mother holds a tiny bundle of skin and bones to her withered breast . . . but there is nothing there. Soon—perhaps tomorrow—her child will be dead, and she will have only bitter memories of unbearable suffering.

*A missionary steps out of his home to find the hunger ravaged corpses of small children at his doorstep—left there in the dark of night by distraught parents.

*At a feeding station, a fine trail of white flour drifts to the ground from a punctured bag. The children who can still move their arms and legs scoop the flour up with dirt and swallow it before the wind can blow it away.

*A gaunt and withered man is shot in the head for his 12-cent bowl of maize porridge.

*In town after town, village after village, local trash collectors pick up the shriveled little bodies of dead children by the ankles and carry them out to their garbage trucks.

Do we stop and ask ourselves anything? Do we feel bad and shrug it off?

These things do not mean God does not exist, if God did not exist then why would we see it as terrible? Why is suffering wrong? We never try to stop one animal suffering in our games reserves, because we see it as a course of nature- survival of the fittest, but why not with humans? why is suffering… suffering? It is suffering because we have an endued worth, the image of God that sets us apart from the animals. The question is not, if there is suffering how can there be God, the question is, if there is suffering, how can there not be a God?

But alas, we are left with the question, why does God allowing suffering, this is a more appropriate question, from the depression I have to the starvation and political strife in Africa, why would God decree it? Well, I think there are many reason, which I will in time elucidate on this blog, however my point today is where we started. Not to the philosophers, or the atheists, or agnostics (all though there is a parable for you as well), but Christians God is showing us the exceeding sinfulness of sin. Should we merely debate theology and go to Bible studies and pray and read our Bible, if all that learning leads to nothing, then is there life (fruit). We need to take share the answer if we so believe He is the answer (Jesus Christ).