GOD ALLOWED IT?
INTENTION:
Don’t blame God for
the misfortunes of this world.
He is the Author of
Life, not hardship or death.
I.
TOPIC:
We want to look at the saying about whether or not “God
Allowed It?”.
Sometimes we see this as said in the questions: “Why does
evil exist?” or “Why does God allow evil?”.
But these questions boil down to humanity trying to
understand the Character and Nature of God and questioning whether He is in
control or even exists. We would like to think that God “sovereignly” chooses
when things happen, if it is to happen, and why it happens—whether it be a
natural disaster (like a hurricane or earthquake), sickness, disease, birth
defect, pandemic, accident, unanswered prayer, and the like.
To ask the question, “Why does God allow evil?”, is usually
in the context of harm done to us or others. We want God to keep people and
things from hurting other people (and hurting us personally). Yet, with that
question, do we also ask ourself, “Why does God allow ME to do evil?”
From the beginning of
Creation, God has only wanted the best for us. He designed a world free from
hurt and pain and evil. And in that perfect place, did not design us as
programmed robots. He designed us with Free Will: the ability to make our own
decision to choose Him (Life) or choose death (Genesis 2:16-17 and Deuteronomy 30:11-20)—further giving us understanding that it’s the
Thief that comes to Kill, Steal, and Destroy—not Him (John 10:10).
This same God-Given means to choose for ourselves,
regardless of the consequences, is still active now. We make choices for
ourself that bring us in alignment (or not) with His Will, affecting both
ourselves and those around us.
Yes, it is our choice to align with His Will—to make “on
earth as it is in Heaven” (Matthew
6:10 and Matthew
18:18).
Can you do something outside of God’s Will? Yes.
Can you do something without God knowing it? No.
That is God’s Sovereignty—a
sovereignty WITH limits.
In the desire to want God to be All-Powerful (and
all-controlling), we make it as though we do not have to take responsibility
for our own actions. That way, when something doesn’t go the way WE want it to,
there is someone to blame but ourselves (blame as an individual or humanity as
a whole). And if we don’t like what we see, or do not want to believe God is
All Good, we create doctrines and confusions of God—even though Christ Jesus
demonstrated to us the exact identity of who God is. We may even deny the
existence of God because we can’t fathom a God who would allow a person to have
a Free Will to do harm (disguised in the question of God allowing evil).
The term “evil” above, is used as a verb with the actions of
being: morally reprehensible, arising from actual or imputed bad character or
conduct… (Merriam-Webster).
But in the context of the Bible, that definition is just talking about the sins
that people commit. When Jesus used the word ‘evil’, He referenced people that
do not believe in Him for Salvation—‘evil’ as a state of being (Matthew
7:11); just as we saw with Righteousness as a state of being.
As such, when we question God as to why He allows bad things
to happen, we are talking about why sin exists—because, regardless of whether
you are a Born-Again believer or not, we still commit sins (as we have
discussed in previous Bible Lessons). Sin is anything God does not want for us.
But these sins of the flesh, as we know, were forever taken away at the Cross.
The Sin of not believing (being Evil) is only removed upon believing in Jesus
Christ.
But that is not what we are discussing here—we are here to
really talk about whether God can somehow control us (violating our Free Will)
and thus “allows” things to happen or not based on a decision He makes in that
specific moment. Implying that God was witness to something He could alter with
His Power, but for some reason “chose” not to. Or more specifically, this is
asking the question: can God make someone do sinful “evil” things?
In short, the answer to these questions is that He cannot
violate our Free Will; instead, He instructs us in what to do, even providing
us the power and ability to choose Life over Death. And does so through
guidance; not forcing, not hardening, not coercing, not manipulating, not
bullying. The choice is ours.
II.
READING: We limit God in and through us:
Ephesians
3:4-21 (MSG)
As you read over what I have written to you, you’ll be able
to see for yourselves into the mystery of Christ. None of our ancestors
understood this. Only in our time has it been made clear by God’s Spirit
through his holy apostles and prophets of this new order. The mystery is that
people who have never heard of God and those who have heard of him all their
lives (what I’ve been calling outsiders and insiders) stand on the same ground
before God. They get the same offer, same help, same promises in Christ Jesus.
The Message is accessible and welcoming to everyone, across the board.
7-8 This is my life work: helping people understand and
respond to this Message. It came as a sheer gift to me, a real surprise, God
handling all the details. When it came to presenting the Message to people who
had no background in God’s way, I was the least qualified of any of the
available Christians. God saw to it that I was equipped, but you can be sure
that it had nothing to do with my natural abilities.
8-10 And so here I am, preaching and writing about things
that are way over my head, the inexhaustible riches and generosity of Christ.
My task is to bring out in the open and make plain what God, who created all
this in the first place, has been doing in secret and behind the scenes all
along. Through followers of Jesus like yourselves gathered in churches, this
extraordinary plan of God is becoming known and talked about even among the
angels!
11-13 All this is proceeding along lines planned all along
by God and then executed in Christ Jesus. When we trust in him, we’re free to
say whatever needs to be said, bold to go wherever we need to go. So don’t let
my present trouble on your behalf get you down. Be proud!
14-19 My response is to get down on my knees before the
Father, this magnificent Father who parcels out all heaven and earth. I ask him
to strengthen you by his Spirit—not a brute strength but a glorious inner
strength—that Christ will live in you as you open the door and invite him in.
And I ask him that with both feet planted firmly on love, you’ll be able to
take in with all followers of Jesus the extravagant dimensions of Christ’s
love. Reach out and experience the breadth! Test its length! Plumb the depths!
Rise to the heights! Live full lives, full in the fullness of God.
20-21 God can do anything, you know—far more than you could
ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams! He does it not by
pushing us around but by working within us, his Spirit deeply and gently within
us.
Glory to God in the church!
Glory to God in the Messiah, in Jesus!
Glory down all the generations!
Glory through all millennia! Oh,
yes!
III.
RELATED VERSES AND QUESTIONS:
A. God
cannot force us to believe in Him, nor can He force us to follow Him. This is
something we even saw in the life and ministry of Jesus. He demonstrated
Himself as Christ, and represented fully who God the Father was, yet people
still chose not to believe Him—even when witnessing all His miracles. People
had hardened hearts to Him—and it wasn’t God doing the hardening. It wasn’t
even God who hardened Pharaoh’s heart—it is the miracles and Righteousness of
God that people react to in a hardened state. The disciples of Jesus “couldn’t
believe” some of the things Jesus did—their hearts were hardened.
Mark
3:1-6 (MSG) {PoG}
Then he went back in the meeting
place where he found a man with a crippled hand. The Pharisees had their eyes
on Jesus to see if he would heal him, hoping to catch him in a Sabbath
violation. He said to the man with the crippled hand, “Stand here where we can
see you.”
4 Then he spoke to the
people: “What kind of action suits the Sabbath best? Doing good or doing evil?
Helping people or leaving them helpless?” No one said a word.
5-6 He looked them in the
eye, one after another, angry now, furious at their hard-nosed religion {hardness
of their hearts}. He said to the man, “Hold out your hand.” He held it out—it
was as good as new! The Pharisees got out as fast as they could, sputtering
about how they would join forces with Herod’s followers and ruin him.
Mark
16:9-16 (MSG) {PoG}
After rising from the
dead, Jesus appeared early on Sunday morning to Mary Magdalene, whom he had
delivered from seven demons. She went to his former companions, now weeping and
carrying on, and told them. When they heard her report that she had seen him
alive and well, they didn’t believe her.
12-13 Later he appeared,
but in a different form, to two of them out walking in the countryside. They
went back and told the rest, but they weren’t believed either.
14-16 Still later, as the
Eleven were eating supper, he appeared and took them to task most severely for
their stubborn unbelief {and hardness of heart}, refusing to believe those who
had seen him raised up. Then he said, “Go into the world. Go everywhere and
announce the Message of God’s good news to one and all. Whoever believes and is
baptized is saved; whoever refuses to believe is damned.
Hebrews
3:7-11 (MSG) {PoG}
That’s why the Holy Spirit
says,
Today, please listen; don’t
turn a deaf ear {harden your heart} as in “the bitter uprising,” that time of
wilderness testing!
Even though they watched
me at work for forty years, your ancestors refused to let me do it my way; over
and over they tried my patience.
And I was provoked, oh, so
provoked! I said, “They’ll never keep their minds on God; they refuse to walk
down my road.”
Exasperated, I vowed,
“They’ll never get where they’re going, never be able to sit down and rest.”
Question: Is it a choice to believe in Him? Why
were their hearts hardened?
B. We are given instruction not to be led “astray”—a choice. Jesus warned people to watch out for the deception of the Pharisees who lead people away from the Lord—all the while the Lord wanting to have relationship with them. He can only instruct us, not force us: “Don’t let people do that to you” [i.e., our choice]. This shows how we have a choice to whom we follow and whom we believe. God can only lead us to Himself, not make people.
Matthew
23:1-13 (MSG)
Now Jesus turned to
address his disciples, along with the crowd that had gathered with them. “The
religion scholars and Pharisees are competent teachers in God’s Law. You won’t
go wrong in following their teachings on Moses. But be careful about following
them. They talk a good line, but they don’t live it. They don’t take it into
their hearts and live it out in their behaviour. It’s all spit-and-polish
veneer.
4-7 “Instead of giving you
God’s Law as food and drink by which you can banquet on God, they package it in
bundles of rules, loading you down like pack animals. They seem to take
pleasure in watching you stagger under these loads, and wouldn’t think of lifting
a finger to help. Their lives are perpetual fashion shows, embroidered prayer
shawls one day and flowery prayers the next. They love to sit at the head table
at church dinners, basking in the most prominent positions, preening in the
radiance of public flattery, receiving honorary degrees, and getting called
‘Doctor’ and ‘Reverend.’
8-10 “Don’t let people do
that to you, put you on a pedestal like that. You all have a single Teacher,
and you are all classmates. Don’t set people up as experts over your life,
letting them tell you what to do. Save that authority for God; let him tell you
what to do. No one else should carry the title of ‘Father’; you have only one
Father, and he’s in heaven. And don’t let people manoeuvre you into taking
charge of them. There is only one Life-Leader for you and them—Christ.
11-12 “Do you want to
stand out? Then step down. Be a servant. If you puff yourself up, you’ll get
the wind knocked out of you. But if you’re content to simply be yourself, your
life will count for plenty.
13 “I’ve had it with you!
You’re hopeless, you religion scholars, you Pharisees! Frauds! Your lives are
roadblocks to God’s kingdom. You refuse to enter, and won’t let anyone else in
either.
Question: Is God the one keeping you out of
God’s Kingdom?
C. The
Lord is always doing His utmost to lead us to “greener pastures”, providing for
us and keeping us safe from harm. However, He also makes it clear that, as
Christians, we will face persecution. Paul faced much harm from Alexander the
coppersmith (2
Timothy 4:14-15); whom I believe was Paul’s “thorn in the flesh” as a
“messenger of Satan” (2
Corinthians 12:7-9). This is because God cannot violate a person’s own free
will to be the one doing the persecuting. He, as God in the Flesh, couldn’t
even keep Himself from persecution.
Mark
10:29-31 (MSG)
Jesus said, “Mark my
words, no one who sacrifices house, brothers, sisters, mother, father,
children, land—whatever—because of me and the Message will lose out. They’ll
get it all back, but multiplied many times in homes, brothers, sisters,
mothers, children, and land—but also in troubles. And then the bonus of eternal
life! This is once again the Great Reversal: Many who are first will end up
last, and the last first.”
Question: Have you ever done something hurtful
(intentionally or by mistake) to someone?
D. What
are other areas in life where the Lord instructs us to do—not Him being the one
doing:
·
Refer also: Bible Study Lesson 031 – Our
Responsibility (With the Lord)
Matthew
18:18 {PoG} – Don’t Limit Heaven on Earth.
I am truly telling you:
that whatever you choose to bind {forbid} on earth, it will be also be
bound in Heaven {forbidden from coming to earth}; and whatever you
choose to loose on {set free into this} earth, it will be loosed {set free}
in Heaven {to be able to come to earth}.
Mark
11:22-24 (MSG) – Speak to your Mountain.
Jesus was matter-of-fact:
“Embrace this God-life. Really embrace it, and nothing will be too much for
you. This mountain, for instance: Just say, ‘Go jump in the lake’—no shuffling
or hemming and hawing—and it’s as good as done. That’s why I urge you to pray
for absolutely everything, ranging from small to large. Include everything as
you embrace this God-life, and you’ll get God’s everything.
John
20:30-31 (MSG) – You Must Chose to Believe in Him.
Jesus provided far more
God-revealing signs than are written down in this book. These are written down
so you will believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and in the act
of believing, have real and eternal life in the way he personally revealed it.
Romans
12:1-2 (MSG) – You Need to Renew Your Mind.
So here’s what I want you
to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping,
eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an
offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him.
Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even
thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside
out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it.
Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of
immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in
you.
James
4:7-10 (MSG) – We Have to Resist the Devil.
So let God work his will
in you. Yell a loud no to the Devil and watch him make himself scarce. Say a
quiet yes to God and he’ll be there in no time. Quit dabbling in sin. Purify
your inner life. Quit playing the field. Hit bottom, and cry your eyes out. The
fun and games are over. Get serious, really serious. Get down on your knees
before the Master; it’s the only way you’ll get on your feet.
1
John 4:1-3 (MSG) – We are Instructed to Test the Spirits.
My dear friends, don’t
believe everything you hear. Carefully weigh and examine what people tell you.
Not everyone who talks about God comes from God. There are a lot of lying
preachers loose in the world.
2-3 Here’s how you test
for the genuine Spirit of God. Everyone who confesses openly his faith in Jesus
Christ—the Son of God, who came as an actual flesh-and-blood person—comes from
God and belongs to God. And everyone who refuses to confess faith in Jesus has
nothing in common with God. This is the spirit of antichrist that you heard was
coming. Well, here it is, sooner than we thought!
Question: Do you find you would rather have God
do for you, than do what He wants you to do?
IV.
FURTHER THOUGHT:
A. A
sad reality to some Bible translations is that when done incorrectly, it can
cause confusion and create unnecessary doctrines to try and resolve implied
conflict in God’s Word. In the following verses, most translations have
contributed “hardness of heart” to something that God does to us (that He is
the One hardening our heart); from which He then scolds us for having that
hardened heart. But when we look at these verses in both the Greek and quoted
Hebrew, it does not say that it is God doing the hardening. And the Message
translation correctly shares this in John:
John
12:35-40 (MSG)
35-36 Jesus said, “For a
brief time still, the light is among you. Walk by the light you have so
darkness doesn’t destroy you. If you walk in darkness, you don’t know where
you’re going. As you have the light, believe in the light. Then the light will
be within you, and shining through your lives. You’ll be children of light.”
36-40 Jesus said all this,
and then went into hiding. All these God-signs he had given them and they still
didn’t get it, still wouldn’t trust him. This proved that the prophet Isaiah
was right:
God, who believed what we preached?
Who
recognized God’s arm, outstretched and ready to act?
First, they wouldn’t
believe, then they couldn’t—again, just as Isaiah said:
Their eyes are blinded, their hearts are hardened,
So that they wouldn’t see with their eyes and perceive
with their hearts,
And turn to me, God, so I
could heal them.
This is how it would read in a corrected AKJV
translation for both John and Isaiah:
John
12:40 {PoG}
He hath blinded
their eyes, and hardened their heart;
Their eyes are blind, and their hearts are hardened.
And because of this, they are not able see, nor
understand with their heart; to be converted.
So that I, the Lord, would
indeed heal (G2390)
them.
Isaiah
6:10 {PoG}
Make the heart of
this people fat,
and make their ears
heavy, and shut their eyes;
The hearts of these people are fat (waxed),
And their ears are heavy (dulled), and their eyes are
shut (smeared shut / blinded);
Otherwise, they would see with their eyes, and
hear with their ears,
and understand with their
heart, and convert, and be healed (H7495).
Thoughts: If it is the Lord’s desire that they
be converted and be healed, why is it that He would be the one hardening their
hearts? Why would God’s Will be keeping people away from Him when it is His Will
that all would come to Him?
We must not accept this contradiction—either we must believe He doesn’t want people to come to Him, or that He does want people to come to Him. Jesus showed that it is God’s Will that everyone would choose to come to Him for Salvation. Yet, Jesus also let us know that not all would. The Lord’s wants everyone saved:
2
Timothy 2:4-7 (MSG)
He wants not only us but everyone saved, you know,
everyone to get to know the truth we’ve learned: that there’s one God and only
one, and one Priest-Mediator between God and us—Jesus, who offered himself in
exchange for everyone held captive by sin, to set them all free. Eventually the
news is going to get out. This and this only has been my appointed work:
getting this news to those who have never heard of God, and explaining how it
works by simple faith and plain truth.
B.
Let’s tackle Romans
9 including where it says, “Therefore He has mercy on whom He wills, and
whom He wills He hardens”. Does it really say God does violate our free will;
and that it is Him who pre-chooses who gets Saved?
We won’t read
this chapter together, as it can be its own lesson. But want to bring some
insight as to being able to read it from the perspective of God not controlling
people.
We cannot
discard all that we have now previously read through (and all the previous
lessons) because of this one section of the Bible. We must instead evaluate
what Paul is saying and the context from which he is saying it.
In general, the context of
Romans
9 is written from a Jewish perspective towards Gentiles. For the Jews, they
believed that because they were the “chosen” people, only they themselves had
access to God. Yet God’s plan was to always bring the Gentiles into that
access—to “graft them in” (Romans
11).
This upset the Jews,
because they didn’t feel like the Gentiles “deserved” God’s mercy. Just as
Jonah lamented that God showed Nineveh mercy (Jonah
4). Or that the Disciples James and John wanted to “call fire down from
Heaven” to destroy the Samaritan village (Luke
9:54). Our human nature tends to want to inflict a punishing justice for
“evils”. Yet Jesus did not come to Judge, but to bring Mercy and Forgiveness.
God doesn’t pick based on
our works—like humans do (or as we create Santa Claus to be)—He picks outside
of our works because He Loves us and wants to give each of us a chance to come
to Him and see how much Grace and Mercy He has for us. Esau was the “natural”
choice in human eyes, but God chose outside of our way of doing things. It
wasn’t that He had anything against Esau, He just wanted to demonstrate
compassion to Jacob.
David was an illegitimate son of
Jesse (born from another woman than his brothers). This is how David looked
nothing like his striking brothers. God chose the “red-headed step-child”,
disregarding the sin Jesse had committed. Our religious judgements would not
let a bastard child be made king. Yet God did.
Jesus’s lineage is through
sinners we wouldn’t want associated with our own “good name”; yet it was those
sinners Jesus frequently hung out with. Those sins are not in issue with God
(as we learned before).
What
about Pharaoh then? We need to look at it from the perspective of God not being
able to violate our free will (not the other way around). When we make this the
truth, we can see that Pharaoh’s heart (like the Pharisees and Disciples) were
hardened already to the Lord—and that the miracles (plagues) revealed this
hardness.
Hardened hearts tend to react
negatively to the Lord’s Righteousness.
For Pharaoh, the Lord knew he had
a hardened heart, and furthermore, that it would remain hard. Thus, the Lord
used what was available to demonstrate His existence and superiority over the
god’s of Egypt.
To delve into Romans
9 more, here are a couple of resources:
·
http://lhim.org/blog/2014/04/11/a-free-will-perspective-on-romans-9-and-predestination/
·
https://graceandfaithministries.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/Romans-9.pdf
C.
To study out further the notion of the
“Sovereignty” of God and how He cannot violate our free will, please read:
·
https://newcreeations.org/sovereignty-of-god/
A thank you to Kelly and Joshua who are inspirational in this life-journey. And to all the family, friends, sponsors, and donors who have fed into this ministry and outreach.
If you would like to support this ministry and outreach, you may do so via our website or at:
Comments
Post a Comment