Today we deal with an important topic. The #1 difficult question which turns people off from pursuing faith in God. Many were raised in a Christian household as children and followed the faith for a number of years. Eventually a family tragedy happens. Someone dies earlier than expected, despite having been a kind, generous person and godly their entire life. It just seems so unfair. Meanwhile you may see selfish individuals enjoying sin with no care for God living to a ripe old age in peace with abundance of wealth and material possessions. Does God have a purpose and hidden order behind all of the seeming chaos and unfairness?
The book of Proverbs in particular, has plenty of passages promoting the benefits that will come to the righteous and the punishments the wicked will face. Perhaps we may think that in the real world things do not play out this way. The reality is, many people will only see their reward on the other side. The truth is, when scripture says the righteous have a blessed end, this does not mean they will die at an old age full of wealth and success. It simply means that those who are loyal to God will have a home in his heavenly kingdom after death. Despite the unfairness of this world, no one can take away their end reward on the other side. The converse is also true for those who stay hardened in wickedness. These may think they got away with all sorts of things, living for self only. But at the end, they will have to leave behind all their earthly success and possessions and be judged by God naked. They cannot carry any of their earthly success and status past the barrier of death. The person who exploited others and lived to an old age, and died in pride against God did not “get away with it.” They have to face the ultimate judge and the worst fate that can be imagined.
Matthew 10:28 And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. But rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.
The prosperity promise
The “prosperity gospel” movement can often overpromise life comfort and material gains for a Christian. Many of the Bible verses justifying this teaching are pulled exclusively from the Old Testament however. The New Testament is much more harsh against greed for material abundance, and instead details suffering, sacrifices and trials believers can expect. Unfortunately these passages are often ignored. Listening to prosperity preachers can cause early enthusiasm but results in a sense of betrayal or even leaving the faith when the promise fails to materialize. To correct this requires a balanced understanding of scripture. God did not break those promises. He never promised such in the first place. Reading the Bible for oneself is so important because many times teachers have pet beliefs and doctrines they promote, while hiding from verses that contradict them. Reading a Bible promise book so much can result in this sense of betrayal because it lists only the positive promises, not God’s promises that the Christian life involves trials, sacrifice, and suffering. The next time you want to get mad at God for not fulfilling a promise, ask yourself if he really even promised it in the first place?
Let’s be honest. We never “stand on the word” or “name it and claim it” when it comes to verses promising persecution like Timothy 3:12 “Yes, and all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution.” But we happily cherry pick the words of comfort to believe for. This unbalanced reading of scripture can result in a selective memory where we blame God when hardship comes, despite the Bible often speaking of trials believers must face. We should pray for strength to overcome trials, rather than becoming angry at God once they appear or expecting continuous blessing for being a Christian.
For most of us reading this, there are people who had to overcome far worse trials than you or me faced, yet they returned to praise God and give their testimony. Missionaries must endure great hardship and maintain faith and an attitude of praise.
Salvation of the soul and physical healing of the body are God’s core promises to believers. God does love to give other blessings but those extras are not entitlements. Sometimes we will have setbacks while it seems flagrantly immoral people experience constant success and gains. Remember worldly success is not promised to us as believers. We live for what is important eternally and on the other side.
We cannot come with the attitude that God “owes” us anything. This attitude sets a person up for disappointment and resentment against God when the inevitable hardships of life come.
It’s not heaven
Earth is a mixture of heavenly, human, and demonic influence and takes on part the characteristics of all three. Although God gives us his word and has angels influencing us for good, we also face the deceptions of satan and demons working to lead humans astray through our mind. Expecting earth to be like heaven with no wrongs is just unrealistic. Its better to thank God for his forgiveness in making a way for us to enter heaven and live an eternal life of peace where the hardships of this present world will be at a permanent end.
Do they really want to go back?
When a loved one dies, the anguish can cause the surviving close friends and family to cry out to God how it is fair that such a wonderful person was taken. Although painful for us, we must remember those who died with faith in Christ are far happier now on the other side. Perhaps in the midst of death they were even given an option to return to their body and life on earth, but chose rather to be with Christ which is “far better” (Phillipians 1:23).
Isaiah mentions that God allows the righteous to die so they can enter the final rest away from the evil and sufferings of earth.
Isaiah 57:1 The righteous perishes,
And no man takes it to heart;
Merciful men are taken away,
While no one considers
That the righteous is taken away from evil.
He shall enter into peace;
We have to release our loved ones to enjoy their heavenly rest and stop wishing them back or being angry at God for taking them away at a time our limited understanding deems “early.”
All loving? Unconditional love?
It is commonly taught in Christian circles that God is all-loving and loves humanity with unconditional love. This view does not seem realistic however when reading the totality of scripture. For example, God chose to love Jacob and hate Esau. If God’s love was unconditional, then he would have loved both instead.
Malachi 1:2-3 “I have loved you,” says the LORD.
But you ask, “How have You loved us?”
“Was not Esau Jacob’s brother?” declares the LORD. “Yet Jacob I have loved, but Esau I have hated,”
John 13:23, singles out one of the twelve disciples as “the one whom Jesus loved.” If God has unconditional love for everyone equally, then why would the Bible state that Jesus loved one disciple more than the others? Evidently that disciple fulfilled more of the conditions to allow God’s heart to open towards him compared to the other companions.
Daniel is mentioned as being a “man greatly beloved” by the angels:
Daniel 10:11 And [the angel] said to me, “O Daniel, man greatly beloved, understand the words that I speak to you, and stand upright,…”
God’s love is also time-based. He gives us a space of time while living on earth to humble ourselves, repent, and accept Christ’s forgiveness. If a person ignores or rejects this offer until after death then only God’s wrath remain and there is no love. The love is conditional upon a person repenting before timeframe expires.
Although God shows and speaks of his love throughout scripture, he does not claim to be ALL-loving or to have unconditional love.
God’s forgiveness is great, but he wants to see repentance and remorse. He does not give unlimited forgiveness to those who will chose to stay in sin and rebellion. God has standards and conditions.
Isaiah 45:7 I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things.
God is loving and good but there is another side to God as well. The holiness and wrath against sin. So to answer the question, how can God claim to be all-loving and yet allow such pain?? God never claimed to be all-loving; his love has limits and God has other aspects such as judgment and holiness which he displays, not just all-love.
God suffers as well
God leads by example in the sufferings, rejection, and betrayal his son Christ experienced. God is not forcing humanity to experience anything worse than happened to his own son. When an innocent child dies, remember God’s innocent son died also and God shares in the grief.
God feels the pain of rejection when we disobey him and follow distractions and other idols. God’s emotions are much more powerful than ours and when we suffer, he feels the same pain within himself amplified. This is the strength of his love. We never go through a trial alone. God feels our pain but in an even stronger way. We often think of God being aloof because we cannot see or feel him, and forget that he is still with us in our hardships sympathizing and feeling all of the same pain we feel.
“Sealing” and Free will
The most common defenses of God’s goodness despite suffering that theologians have historically made centers on free will. As such so as to not reinvent the wheel we will spend less time on the free will argument in this article, but it should be briefly discussed and we will take an innovative approach.
Throughout the Bible we see a large part of God and humanity’s interaction has to do with sin. Being judged for sin, repenting from sin, receiving God’s grace to cover sin. It is a major focus of God’s.
So why did he create us with the ability to choose wrong?
It seems it would be “cheating” for God to create a perfect being who would always chose right without having to be tested. Remember Jesus was begotten and not created, so he contained more of God’s essence in him and was able to obey perfectly. For the rest of us, humans and angels, our souls start out in between light and darkness and the only way to gain light is to submit to God and make the right choices.
We would not truly carry any light if we were forced and coerced to always make the correct decision. The trials and choices on earth are what allows God to complete the first step of creation, separating the light from darkness within us (Genesis 1). This could not be done without giving us free choice. We would be like robots and inanimate objects, not truly in God’s image.
The passage in Genesis should be understood spiritually, as referring to the inner light, not natural light. The day occupies two thirds and the night one third. This is like how two thirds of angels stayed true to the light, while one third followed Lucifer. Two steps forward and one step back, how the struggle against strongholds of sin can often be. But light always has the greater power if we seek it.
So evidently it was not possible for God to create the perfect illumined human without violating his own internal principles. The essence of God the Father is he is the Rulemaker before everything else. His laws bring structure to the universe. The material world is based on exact rules such as gravity, that can be predicted every time through mathematics. The spiritual world has its own fixed laws as well. God will not violate his own internal principles just to get something he wants. God must do it the hard way also. God will not break his own rules and then expect creation to follow them. He leads by example.
Evidently the angels were also originally created with free will as is evidenced by Lucifer’s rebellion. However the angels in heaven have already been tested and are now “fixed” on the path of light. Likewise demons can no longer repent but their spirits are stuck in darkness.
The Bible talks about “sealing” in the book of Revelation. The bondservants of God are sealed on their foreheads, protecting them from the possibility of being later corrupted. Likewise those who accepted the mark of the beast on their forehead or right arm are sealed by this mark in darkness and cannot change from it. God’s end goal is to have heaven full of believers who are “sealed” in obedience and overcame the darkness that was in them are creation.
When recalling the number 666, we often equate it with satan and complete evil. According to Revelation 13 however it is the number of MAN. Number 666 is simply the human being operated separately from God. Christ’s number according to analysis (gematria) of his name in original Greek is 888. This is because Christ took his human 666 nature and kept it always connected to the Yod , (First letter of YHWH and a stand-in for the sacred name) which fills in the gap in the head of the 6 and completes the upper circle turning each 6 to an 8. The human 666 connected with the three persons of God , , , creates the new person in Christ 888.
The unfairness of the universe
The universe itself is designed with unfairness as its primary principle. The law of gravity means the largest objects will accumulate more material and become yet larger. Meanwhile smaller things like asteroids, will become eroded over time. Its totally unfair and yet it results in the beauty we see in the stars. God could have used a different principle and created everything of equal size, however “fairness” is not a priority to God like it often is to us. If every star was the same size and distance the universe would be quite boring. Having some inequality creates the variety that makes it beautiful.
Perhaps God also used this principle as a reflection of his own relationship with creation which is an unequal relationship.
This same principle applies to wealth. The wealthy can easily invest or start businesses while the poor may only have enough for food and rent with insufficient left over to invest for multiplication, causing them to be trapped at the same level.
As humans we may value fairness and equality, but it seems God does not put the same weight on it. God likes the world to be somewhat unfair, and for us to chose to voluntarily help others. The world would be boring if everyone was equally talented and successful just as the universe would be boring if every star was the same color and brightness.
Did God or satan create the mosquito?
This last part is more speculative but introduces a possibility that some things happen behind the scenes in heaven that we humans may never know. Consider this possibility:
When God existed alone outside of time only light existed because nothing stood up against God to create a “shadow.” Darkness came from Lucifer’s rebellion. Although God is the creator, the universe came into being as mostly darkness with only small points of light, contrary to God’s own nature.
This suggests that Lucifer began his rebellion before creation had finished taking place. Perhaps he tampered with some of the blueprints of creation, causing a partial corruption of the seed that became the big bang. While the universe reflects God’s order, it also reflects the violence and corruption of satan.
In Job 15:15 it says even the heavens (stars/sky) are not pure in God’s sight. The only way this could have happened is if the seed of creation was tampered with by Lucifer before the big bang.
In Genesis 1:26, God says: “Let US create man.” This word translated as God here is “Elohim.” This word is plural in the original text and in other places is often referring to “gods,” “angels,” “mighty men,” not always only to the primary God. I believe the “us” God refers to include his angels as stewards helping to build and create according to God’s order. Think of modern construction. The owner who finances a building’s construction is not also the one who applies the plaster and cement, fastens nails, etc. He delegates these jobs to employees and contractors. I don’t see why we expect God did all the work alone creating the universe and would not allow the angels to help. All throughout the Bible God chooses human and angelic servants to normally work through rather than doing things on his own. God could set the main order and design standards for creation and allow angels more minor areas of discretion within God’s broad boundaries. Lucifer apparently went outside of these boundaries.
Consider this possibility: Each angelic team had been assigned a species or animal type to help create according to God’s pattern as well as a part of earth to steward. Lucifer was involved in the creation of the serpent. God intended all these creatures to live in harmony but due to the pride of Lucifer and his rebellious angels, they went outside God’s authorized pattern and added unauthorized features onto their animals to make them fierce and warlike, giving them superiority, causing an arms race of sorts. Wanting their creations to be dominate over all the over angels creations.
I believe the parable of the wheat and tares (Matthew 13:24-30) illustrates something like this. Satan sowed tares throughout the field and they could not be uprooted until the harvest at the end of time. This could signify how he and his fallen angel partners corrupted the parts of creation they were responsible for. God could not reverse creation without harming all the “good” parts of it also, and we have to fight the corruption until the end of the age where God will destroy the old heavens and earth, replacing them with his perfect new creation. We don’t see all of this happening behind the scenes and people just accuse God for every problem, not considering that he is doing everything to restore goodness to the earth.
So yes, the mosquito may very well have been created by satan. Originally a more peaceful design of God’s like a firefly that was then perverted by satan into a malevolent modification. Although the devil is not very creative, he loves to warp God’s created order. Even humans do the same as with covid which was shown to have been created in a lab, and other GMO’s.
The book of Job is enlightening as to how we humans do not see what is happening in heaven behind the scenes. Job thought God was being unfair to him, but he did not realize there was a bargain between God and satan to allow his suffering and by staying loyal to God, everything he had was restored double. Yet even at the end of the book, God never told Job why he caused his suffering. Some of the reasons God allows suffering will only be known when we reach the other side.