Where was God?

I should've posted this at the end of December, when it was still 2012, but I figured, better late than never!  (That's usually my motto - ha ha!)

Anyway, when things go wrong, you often hear the question "Where was God?"  Where is God when evil happens?

There have been entire books devoted to answering that question (a really good one to read on the subject is "If God is Good" by Randy Alcorn).

But, why do we never hear "Where is God when good happens?"

John Piper asks this very question in his post, "Where was God in all the Goodness of 2012?"
Here is that post.....

As this year ends, the question I am asking is: Where was God when so many good things happened this past year?

How can God be a God of justice, yet allow so much good to happen to people who dishonor him by disbelieving in him, or giving lip service to his existence, or paying no more attention to him than the carpet in their den, or rejecting the kingship of his Son, or scorning his word, or preferring a hundred pleasures before him?

How can God be righteous and do so much good to us who are so unrighteous?

Where was God in 2012?
Where was God when nine million planes landed safely in the United States?
Where was God when the world revolved around the sun so accurately that it achieved the Winter solstice perfectly at 5:12 AM December 21 and headed back toward Spring?
Where was God when the President was not shot at a thousand public appearances?
Where was God when American farms produced ten million bushels of corn, and 2.8 million bushels of soybeans — enough food to sell $100 billions worth to other nations?
Where was God when no terrorist plot brought down a single American building or plane or industry?
Where was God when the sun maintained its heat and its gravitational pull precisely enough that we were not incinerated or frozen?
Where was God when three hundred million Americans drank water in homes and restaurants without getting sick?
Where was God when no new plague swept away a third of our race?
Where was God when Americans drove three trillion accident free miles?
Where was God when over three million healthy babies were born in America?

Here are a few of the answers given by God himself in his word.

1. God was reigning from his throne to do his sovereign will.“Our God is in the heavens; he does all that he pleases.” (Psalm 115:3)
“He works all things according to the counsel of his will.” (Ephesians 1:11)

2. God was reigning from his throne to prevent much sin and harm in the world.“God said to [Abimelech, the king of Gerar], it was I who kept you from sinning against me. Therefore I did not let you touch her.” (Genesis 20:6)
“You know what is restraining [the man of lawlessness] now.” (2 Thessalonians 2:6)

3. God was reigning from his throne to give a witness to his goodness and his patience.“God did not leave himself without witness, for he did good by giving you rains from heaven and fruitful seasons, satisfying your hearts with food and gladness.” (Acts 14:17)

4. God was reigning from his throne to summon the world to repentance.“Do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?” (Romans 2:4)

So as the year ends, I bow my head as an undeserving sinner, amazed that I have not been swept away. And even more, that because of Jesus, I am forgiven, adopted into God’s family, and destined for eternal life.

God has been good to us. And his best gift is the one that will be there when all the others fail. Jesus, crucified, risen, reigning.

If God is good.....

In studying for my post on my Bible blog for this past Sunday's passage, I learned something that absolutely blew me away.  Something I had never truly understood before, and I wanted to share it with you.

We presume upon God's goodness.  We all do.  Believers and non-believers alike.  We enjoy the blessings of family, air to breath, water to drink, food to eat almost like it's our right to have them.  And often with little thought or credit to God who has blessed us with them. (Except maybe on Thanksgiving - wow, what an appropriately timed post, right?!)

But the moment things go wrong, we blame God.  How could He allow this to happen?  How could God possibly claim to be good and then allow _____ to happen to me?  If God is good and powerful, then why didn't He stop it?

Not only that - how come the God we see in the OT is so wrathful?  God destroys all but Noah, his sons, and their wives in a flood.  God strikes down Uzzah "just because" he touches the Ark in an attempt to prevent it from crashing to the ground.  God turns Lot's wife into a pillar of salt "just because" she looked back as her hometown was destroyed.  40 boys are killed by a bear "just because" they made fun of one of God's prophets.  And on it goes.

When I read Pastor John MacArthur's answer to that question, I was blown away.  Here it is (emphasis mine)....

Now listen, if you look, watch this, at the Old Testament with the New Testament in view, you're going to get confused because we live in an aura of the goodness and mercy and grace of God. And if you go back from that perspective, you're going to get all confused in the Old Testament. The problem is we feel that God is unjust because we are comparing His justice with His mercy, not His mercy with His law. Let me show you what I mean. We have to go back to creation. You cannot look at the Old Testament from the New Testament, you have to look at the Old Testament from the creation.

Now, God said this, "In the day you eat of the fruit of the tree you shall surely...what?...die." When God created He said, you sin--you die. The New Testament reiterates the wages of sin is...what?...death. The soul that sinneth, said Ezekiel, it shall die. You eat, you die. In creation, all sin was a capital offense. Any sin, God had a right to kill. Now think of it this way. God made man freely. Created man of His own choice freely. He made man to glorify Him. He made man to radiate His image. He made man to manifest His person. But man rebelled. R.C. Sproul says he committed cosmic treason.

Now if God freely made man and God freely gave man his life and God freely gave man the conditions to continue that life, and man chose to violate that, then God had every right in the world to take that life back, right? After all, He gave it freely. Whenever we sin we are striking a blow at God's sovereign character. We are misrepresenting His image and His intention for us. We are insulting God and does not He who freely gave life have the right to freely take it back if He gave the conditions and we violated them? Is that unfair? No...no, He gave the conditions, that would be just. He has every right to take back the life He gave when that life violates His conditions.

Okay, Adam and Eve ate. Let me ask you a question, did they die? No...no, they didn't die. Did they get justice? No, what did they get? Mercy. And at the moment that Adam and Eve sinned, God's mercy was activated and you know what else was activated? The plan of the cross because as soon as God was merciful to sinners, somebody had to take His justice, right? And the cross became a fixed reality. So originally every sin...now stay with me...every sin required death. Is it unjust by God's law to take the life of the rebel to whom God has been so good? No. But God didn't exercise His justice, He was merciful to Adam and Eve.

Now listen to me. By the time you come to the Mosaic law, you only have 30 to 35 capital offenses. That is not cruel and unusual punishment, that is an amazing reduction in the severity of God's judgment, isn't it? Because originally it was any sin and now it's just 30 to 35 of them. And who knows how many thousands there are. God is so merciful but by the time He gets to the Mosaic era He's reduced it to 30 to 35. And you know something else? Even in the case of those 30 to 35, there were times when God did not enact His justice. There were times when the people of Israel did all of those things and God spared their lives. He was merciful. Wherever there was adultery in a marriage, there was supposed to be death. But because they were so adulterous all the time, God permitted them to divorce as a gracious merciful alternative. And they were to die for idolatry but how many times did God forgive that idolatry? And how many times was He merciful? They were to die when they were committing fornication but how many times did God show His patience? They were to die when they murdered, but how many times did God seem to overlook it? He was so patient, so patient.

Now you see, beloved, that is the point. If you compare the Old Testament with the original created standard, the Old Testament is full of mercy...now listen to me...but we are so used to mercy, we are so used to grace, we are so accustomed to getting away with our sin, we are so used to not being punished, we are so accustomed to grace that we abuse it. And whenever God does do what is just, we think He's unjust. That's how confused we are. And that's how we despise the goodness of God. When God knocks down in death Ananias and Sapphira, we say, "Well, how can God be so cruel?" when the fact is, how can anybody else in that congregation stay alive, they were all sinners. You see, we so trade on God's mercy and we're so used to abusing God's grace that we are offended if God isn't merciful. And that's the truth. He chooses times not to be merciful.

You say, "Well, I still don't understand why He does it." Listen, I'll tell you why. Because it's so bad now and we trade so much on His mercy and abuse His grace so badly now that if He didn't give us those frequent examples of His justice, imagine how much more we would trade on His mercy without any fear of repercussion. The reason that God from time to time takes a life and comes down in severe judgment is because periodically throughout the flow of redemptive history He has to illustrate what should happen to bring us back to our senses because we are so accustomed to His mercy. If we didn't have examples of the consequence of sin, we would go on blissfully trading without a thought on His mercy....

So why are there throughout the Old Testament and even into the New, why are there those illustrations of God's instantaneous wrath? They're examples and God does those to show us what should happen to all of us and to build in our hearts attitudes of thanksgiving. Every day I live I should say, "Thank You, God, thank You for being so merciful and overlooking the sin today that should have caused my death and eternal judgment."

I'll tell you, we would never tolerate the insubordination that God tolerates. We tread on His mercy even with these examples, can you imagine if there weren't these examples what would happen?..

we are so used to mercy, so used to grace, that we think justice is unjust.

If God is Good - Book Club Week 2

Mrs Oz from For Such a Time is hosting a summer book club featuring If God is Good by Randy Alcorn. See here for her post on Session 2: Accept the Diagnosis. I am totally late posting this, but better late than never.

Section 2 is titled Understanding Evil: Its Origins, Nature, and Consequences

The entry of evil into the universe came through the rebellion of Satan and other fallen angels, creatures whom God had originally created good. We do not know how evil could take hold in a perfect being - this is one of the mysteries that we are simply unable to understand and God has not explained it to us. But their rebellion did not surprise God.

One interesting point Alcorn makes...

What's the opposite of light? Darkness. What's the opposite of good? Evil. When asked to name the opposite of God, people often answer, "Satan". But that's false. Michael, the righteous archangel, is Satan's opposite. Satan is finite; God is infinite. God has no equal. (pg 51)

Technically this isn't even a fair fight. God will win and He will win decisively - it will be worse than a trouncing. But for now, Satan does have power. As Alcorn puts it - Scripture always describes Satan's power in the context of God's absolute sovereignty. Satan remains under God's authority at all times. The devil is nowhere close to being omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, or anything like God.......Satan is a lion, yes, but a lion on God's leash. (pg 52)

So why doesn't God end it now?

This quote is a bit lengthy, but I think it so hits the nail on the head that I need to share it...

John Piper writes, "Satan's fall and ongoing existence are for the glory of Christ. The Son of God, Jesus Christ, will be more highly honored and more deeply appreciated and loved in the end because he defeats Satan not the moment after Satan fell, but through millennia of long-suffering, patience, humility, servanthood, suffering, and decisively through his own death."

God has both the power and the right to destroy Satan and the demons now, which would demonstrate his justice. But he wants to display his other attributes as well, among them grace, mercy, and patience.

Every day that God delays his final judement against Satan is one more day to extend his grace to a needy world. And it is one more day for his kindness in Christ to accomplish in this fallen world the work for which we will be praising him ten million years from now. (pg 53, 54)

Another excellent point Alcorn is makes is that we, as humans, don't get to decide what is good or evil. God establishes whether something is good or evil and that is not based on what we want or don't want, what we understand or don't understand, human nature, culture or preferences.

If we come to see the purpose of the universe as God's long-term glory rather than our short-term happiness, then we will undergo a critical paradigm shift in tackling the problem of evil and suffering.
The world has gone terribly wrong.
God is going to fix it.
First, for his eternal glory.
Second, for our eternal good.

OK, this is getting rather long. I'm going to end with the one thing that probably impacted me the most from this section.

We need to grasp the seriousness of our own sin.

God despises sin. Any sin. He despises my sin and He despises your sin.

The biggest obstacle to the gospel today in our culture, is the complete ignorance of our own sin. In our culture, most people think that if they are good enough they will go to heaven. And that hell is only for the vilest offenders in prison. Basically everyone else is good enough. They certainly are personally. We don't see the need to be rescued.

In our current culture, we first need to convince people of the bads news (that they are sinners) before we can even begin to tell them the Good News.

The man swallowing ocean water and going under doesn't need to hear he's drowning; he needs a life preserver. But countless people today, arms flailing, as they attempt to keep their heads above water, don't believe they are drowning - and so don't think they need rescue. (pg 77)

If we don't have a correct view of sin we will never acknowledge our need for a Saviour. And, even worse, we minimize what Christ did for us on the cross.

And we don't only demonstrate evil by what we do, but also by what we fail to do, and by what we stand by and allow others to do.

Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn't do it, sins. (James 4:17)

The following exerpt struck a huge nerve with me because I know for a fact that I would react the exact same way.....

Westley Allan Dodd tortured, molested, and murdered three boys. Dodd was scheduled to become the first US criminal hanged in three decades, shortly after midnight on January 4, 1993. At dinner that evening, both our daughters, then eleven and thirteen, prayed earnestly that Doddwould repent and place his faith in Christ before he died. I agreed with their prayer...but only because I knew I should...
Thirty minutes after Dodd, died, the twelve media eyewitnesses recounted the experience. I felt stunned as one of them read Dodd's last words: "I had thought there was no hope and no peace. I was wrong. I have found hope and peace in the Lord Jesus Christ."
Gasps and groans erupted from the gallery, fueled by palpable anger. How dare someone who had committed such heinous crimes claim that he had found hope and peace in Jesus! Did he really think God would let him into Heaven after what he'd done? Shut up and go to Hell, child killer! You won't get off so easy! The idea of God offering grace to Dodd utterly offended the crowd that had come to see justic done.
That's when it hit me in a deep and personal way - I am part of the same human race. I'd imagined the distnace between Dodd and me as the difference between the South and North poles. But from God's viewpoint, the distance is neglible. Apart from Christ, I am Dodd. I am Osama bin Laden. I am Hitler. Only by the virtue of Christ can I stnad forgiven before a holy God.
This isn't hyperbole; it's biblical truth. Unless we come to grips with the fact that we're of precisely the same stock as Dodd and Stalin and Mao, we'll never get over thinking that we deserve better. Evil done to us will offend us, and having to suffer will outrage us. We'll never appreciate Christ's grace so long as we hold on to the proud illusion that we're better than we are.....

Apart from Christ, we are different from every notorious murderer and ruthless dictator only in degree, not in kind.....

The greater our grasp of our sin and alientation from God, the greater our grasp of God's grace.

Obviously we are not only evil.
Obviously some people do far more acts of evil than others.
Obviously we are capable of numerous acts of goodness - indeed, humanity could not survive otherwise.

But we need to quit denying responsibility for our own sin.
We need to quit casting blame.
We need to acknowledge and recognize our sin, and take the steps necessary to guard our hearts.

If God is Good - Book Club Week 1

Mrs Oz from For Such a Time is hosting a summer book club featuring If God is Good by Randy Alcorn.

This week we read the introduction and Section 1 - Understanding the Problem of Evil and Suffering.

The problem of evil and suffering is likely the world's "best" argument against God. How to reconcile the fact that evil and suffering exist, and that God is both all-powerful and all-loving. The argument goes, of course, that since God is not stopping evil He must be either not powerful enough to stop it, or not loving enough to care.

There is one assumption being made however that needs to be challenged. Perhaps there is a reason God is not stepping in to stop all evil right now.

A couple interesting points brought up in the first section....

1) Personally experiencing evil and suffering puts our theology to the test. We may think we know what we believe about evil and suffering and how an all-powerful, all-loving God fits into that, but when we experience it ourselves, that's where what we really think comes through. We need to study the Word and find out exactly what it says about evil and suffering, so that when (not if!) we experience it ourselves, we will be better equipped to deal with it.

2) Personally experiencing evil and suffering usually destroys a weak faith, and enriches an already strong faith. A weak faith was likely faith in something other than God to begin. And the experience of evil and suffering reveals it to be false. Which will result in either a complete loss of faith, or the development of true faith for the first time. An already strong faith will withstand the experience of evil and suffering and come out stronger than before.

3) Christians often have the faulty notion that being a Christian means that God will protect us from all evil and suffering. In fact, the Bible is clear that the exact opposite is true. I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world. John 16:33 I think this is a very important thing that we need to teach our children. It's an incredibly difficult thing to teach because we don't even fully understand it all. But they need to know that God is not a genie in a bottle. They need to know that they will experience bad times (some their own fault through poor choices, others not their own fault). They need to know that God will not always rescue them from evil and suffering here on earth. But they also need to know that God understands how horrible it is, and He is with us through it all, and that eventually, eternally, God and good will prevail.

I am thoroughly enjoying this book (I knew I would - Randy Alcorn is an amazing writer and researcher)! Stay tuned for further installments...