The coming of the end?

Many have struggled with the "problem of evil" in the world. There are usually two responses that people have: 1. Reject religion, reject God and reject Christ because they feel He cannot be trusted. 2. They fall on their knees before Christ in submission and love because of what He did on the cross for them, despite the evil in the world.

Here is something that I wrote on another thread along this theme the other day:

God does allow evil things to happen in this world that He could stop if He so chose to do so, this is obvious. We know from His word that He is All-Powerful and that He knows everything that goes on in the world but still He chooses not to act sometimes (not all the time, He does act when He chooses to and this is often). This world is full of the most dreadful and heinous things that we can imagine and I'm sure in some dark corners even worse then we can imagine. This awful state we find ourselves in is the result of sin (transgressing God's holy and perfect universal law).

Sin has run rampant in the world and it is worse now then ever and many times the innocent suffer because of the evil in the world and especially because of the evil people in the world. But, can God be blamed for what another human being does to another? No, we have free will, God gave man free will so that man could choose himself who he would serve and this freedom allows man to freely and truly love but also in contrast to freely hate.

C.S. Lewis (a great Christian apologist) said that this allowance of free will by God has made the possibility of TRUE love, he said that without free will, true love could not exist; think of it: a world where everyone only did what God said and could not choose any other way...basically everyone being a robot. Could love exist in that world? Maybe I suppose, but I don't see how and neither could C.S. Lewis. This is one explanation.

A second thing is that God uses things in our life: suffering, deaths in the family, heartache and depression and many other things to bring us to a place in our walk with Him that we never could have reached if we stayed in our state before our suffering. This is called "soul building", I hate that term, it sounds so demeaning to me, but if you think about it, it has a lot of merit: we must go through things in this life so that we can grow spiritually, the bible speaks of thanking and praising God when we go through trials because in the end it is for our good and that God will bless us for it.

You see, we are being refined like gold as through fire, we must be made pure and in the end we will shine but it will be through fire that this result comes about. God uses suffering to bring us closer to Him and also sometimes to break us of things in our life that He wants to rid us off. Just remember that our God promises that "all things work together for good to those who love God and are called according to His purpose." We can always hold on to this promise and know that God can and will bring about an eternal good through the trials in our life.

Thirdly is what I started to write at first and that is that God allows these things to happen to show the complete evilness of sin and the rebellion of His creatures. He allows the most horrible things to happen to show us what WE have done as a whole, but more importantly to show us in seriousness why He had to do what He did in Christ. When we see the world around us and truly see how evil it is, it makes Christ all the more precious, the life He gave was to save us from the wrath that we all deserve for our rebellion against God.

He gave His life and will one day return and destroy all evil once and for all. Evil is not permanent, it is temporary and will only last until Christ returns, Jesus will put a stop do the suffering of the innocent and He will wipe away the tears from His saints. If you ever have doubts about God's goodness or love always go back to the cross, actually NEVER leave it, always linger there, Jesus poured out His blood to save you for eternity and to bring you into His presence in this life, He opened a permanent way to God through His death and we are now considered His children, we are children of God! He is there, right now He is there, even if you cannot sense Him or feel Him, just know that He loves you and is watching over you and most of all that He died to save you and lives forevermore, God bless you!

SoS

I recommend you read some apologetics on the subject:

C.S. Lewis "Problem of Pain"

Phillip Yancey "Where is God when it Hurts"

Were two that helped me get through this same dark period of doubt in my life.

Moboroshi said:

I can see what you are saying when it comes to free will. you have brought a lot of light to my eyes because i over analyze I cant say that I am ready to just sacrifice everything to Christ but I can definitely see what you are saying sometimes though, it just seems like ruthless torture than a guiding light. You are the only one who has actually answered some of my questions without saying "god is holy and that is that"

thank you

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Your welcome brother, I know how difficult it can be to live in this evil world (I live here too!). The thing is though, Jesus also lived here at one time, the One True God came down to earth in human form and suffered among us, we see in the bible that Jesus shed tears for His friends when they died and He also shed tears when He was to die. He knows the things we go through and did not spare Himself from our hardships but came and suffered more than any man ever will (His suffering was an eternal suffering, He always knew He was to die on the Cross, for all eternity He knew this) but the truth that Christians have is that this world is not all there is. That God truly does exist and that He loves us more than we can imagine. I know things happen in this life that we cannot understand, things happen like you said even to professing Christians that you would think God would stop. But even though we cannot understand these things now, does not mean that God cannot bring about good out of them. Just because we cannot foresee the end does not mean God can't. We have to just trust like Abraham did and say with him: "Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?" (Genesis 18:25)

The Christian believes that He has (through Christ) and that He will (through eternity).

God bless.

very well said.
Also, I'd like to add, that no matter what, we will have questions which we cant get the answers of. They could've been written in the bible, but if all the answers would be written in the bible, it will be infinite in size and our brains will blow.
And we are Nowhere near as intelligent as God, therefore we cant understand all his actions and decision, that they may seem completely illogical to us or unjust. For example, when we were kids, parents always told us to come back before the night while playing with friends, and would scream at us and beat us if we didnt come which made us to think that our parents hate us - dont like us and dont want us to have fun.Tho, they worry about us in case we get kidnapped or something bad happens at night, but we never thought about that(and I was one of those kids who always got thoroughly beaten because of such things when i was a kid,so I dont do the same mistakes again), because our intelligence was much less than our parents intelligence. And this can completely show we cant understand God, and he is way more intelligent than us, than the difference in intelligence between parents and their kids, so we may understand very good intetions coming from him to be very bad ones

And all those who said that about the end of the world, are either misinterpreters or liars.
I know some Christians say that Jesus isnt the son of God, but a prophet, and it is clearly written in the bible. So, you cant believe everything people say, except if it may seem logical according to the bible



' If the earth is a trail what is the point of taking the breath of life from a newborn who
is the purest most innocent thing in the world?'

Maybe because the baby would be a very good person, but the world will influence him to be evil and get him away from God thoroughly which God doesnt want, and instead wants him in Heaven with him living an eternal happiness without being in life sinning later on ending up in Hell at eternal punishment where God doesnt want him to be. that means he's doing him Great, tho. we dont realize that. And may have many other questions which can have simple answers we didnt think of.

Also, to be 100% completely sure that God is good, you can know that through Jesus, how God could accept his one and only son who was always with , who is mostly loved by God to descend from heaven where joy fills the place to Earth, where pain and suffering and hate is, and after having huge powers to become humanly powers, and living 33 years in torture,being mocked and flamed and refused and kicked especially his last few days on earth, when he suffered a lot, and he knew how much he'll suffer before he came, when he never knew what suffering was in heaven, where he was always happy.
And when a man came calling Jesus 'the good master', Jesus replied 'Nobody else than God is good', and Jesus sacrificed his 33 years for us, and suffered a lot his last days on earth and did many miracles and fasted and he decided to be born in a poor family serving his whole life going from village to village after he was grown, and always serving his parents when young. And he said that only God is good, as he knows him much better than anybody, he's always with him in heaven, and understands him more than anyone of us.

I hope I helped

So, what we need is faith, being sure that God is good and loves us more than we can imagine, and all those messengers coming from Christ, wouldnt have chosen to torture their whole lives either if God wasnt as good they good they thought. But they knew his true goodness through Jesus.

And the sadness and suffering and pain and depression on earth wont match the happiness and joy in Heaven he's preparing us for. The more life is painful on earth, the more the reward will be important, but of course if you be good in life, and do good things,and follow god. So always try to trust God as much as possible, his intentions and love toward us are much better than we can ever imagine

Moboroshi said:

I can see what you are saying when it comes to free will. you have brought a lot of light to my eyes because i over analyze I cant say that I am ready to just sacrifice everything to Christ but I can definitely see what you are saying sometimes though, it just seems like ruthless torture than a guiding light. You are the only one who has actually answered some of my questions without saying "god is holy and that is that"

thank you

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Just to add on to what brother soldier has said, the very fact that we are suffering the evil in this world is not the fault of God, but the fault of the sinfulness of mankind. There is a consequence to every choice we make, if we choose good, we will be blessed, but if we choose evil, we will be cursed and will have to die. God has made it clear in the beginning to Adam and Eve, so they are totally without excuse for choosing what causes death. The same goes for every one of us since Adam and Eve, because God has always made it clear which path leads to blessing and eternal life and which leads to cursing and death. Mankind makes the choice with full knowledge of the consequences, not God.

One of the many reasons why mankind has sinned against God is because they fail to trust in Him and His Word. If Adam and Eve really took God's Word seriously, would they still listen to that serpent? The same applies to our generation. If ALL of us really took God at His Word and believe what He said, would we still go on sinning willfully to our own destruction? No, of course not. But the fact that we do sin willfully is because we don't trust God, and we don't believe in what He says. Should we then blame God for the consequences of our unbelief? Of course not!

The lack of trust in God and faith in His Word is the very cause of mankind's downfall (even today!), and this is not because God has not done enough to earn our trust. In fact, by sending His Son to earth to die for the sins of mankind is a full demonstration of how much God is willing to sacrifice to save His beloved creation. If this is the extent God would go just to save us, do we still have any excuse for not trusting Him with all our hearts, souls and minds? No! This is the reason why in this New Covenant age, mankind is even more without excuse for not taking God's Word seriously and for not trusting Him wholeheartedly. But what do we see in general? People still mock the existence of God and even many professing Christians don't take God at His Word and continue to live sinful lifestyles to dishonor His Name! How would YOU feel if you were in God's shoes? How would YOU feel if people still treat you the way God is being treated after you have sacrificed so much for them? Not only that, but they blame YOU for the suffering they endure because they refused to listen to you and believe that your words can save them! I believe even the most patient man in this world would fume with anger if he was treated so despitefully and ungratefully!

But what is God doing to those people who treat Him with such contempt and disregard? He still sustains their life and still waits for them to repent! Is it too much to say God is infinitely merciful and just and holy? Far be it! Brother, do you even realise how much God is enduring for our sake? Do you realise how patient He is, being the Creator and King of the universe, in enduring such scorn, slander, ungratefulness and disregard from mankind who are but dust! How then can we blame Him for the sufferings WE brought upon ourselves? May God have mercy on us for being so wicked and wretched!