Why do bad things happen to good people?

One of the big issues that trouble people today is, “Why do bad things happen to good people?” Similar questions are. “Why do babies suffer and die when they haven’t done anything wrong?”

Some people blame God and say that it is His fault, in fact, they say that God makes people sin so, ultimately, God is responsible for everything bad that happens and bad people are just doing what God has told them to do.

Today’s reading is:

Psalm 37:21–33 (AV)

“The wicked borroweth, and payeth not again: but the righteous sheweth mercy, and giveth. For such as be blessed of him shall inherit the earth; and they that be cursed of him shall be cut off. The steps of a good man are ordered by the LORD: and he delighteth in his way. Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down: for the LORD upholdeth him with his hand. I have been young, and now am old; yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread. He is ever merciful, and lendeth; and his seed is blessed. Depart from evil, and do good; and dwell for evermore. For the LORD loveth judgment, and forsaketh not his saints; they are preserved for ever: but the seed of the wicked shall be cut off. The righteous shall inherit the land, and dwell therein for ever. The mouth of the righteous speaketh wisdom, and his tongue talketh of judgment. The law of his God is in his heart; none of his steps shall slide. The wicked watcheth the righteous, and seeketh to slay him. The LORD will not leave him in his hand, nor condemn him when he is judged.”

This section begins with a discussion on the wicked. The people from Sodom were wicked because they had rejected the Lord God and His ways. (Gen 13: 13) These people don’t care about the needs of others but the righteous are merciful and generous. Noah was a righteous man because he believed and obeyed God; (Gen 7: 1, 5)

This is the major contrast on the earth today, the righteous and the wicked. There are those who believe God and do what he says while the rest ignore God and all His ways.

The Lord knows those who are righteous because they believe in Him and He will take care of them, in His own way, in His own time. The people who don’t believe in the Lord will, eventually suffer the consequences and be forced away from His goodness forever.

The Lord sees everything that a good, or righteous person done and cares about everything that happens to him. After all, the Lord even cares for the sparrows and there are thousands of them and many die each day. He cares much more for people, whom He has made in His own image. (See Matt 10: 28-31)

The Psalmist talks about a good man, but he is just giving another name for a righteous man. That is, someone who believes in and obeys the Lord. When the Lord gave Adam His first command, He told Adam not to eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. (Gen 2: 9) This is the first time that we read about evil in the Bible. Even though this was a command, it was also a choice, for God told Adam what would happen if He chose to disobey His command. Good people and evil people are the same as righteous people and wicked people. Good people choose to obey God and enjoy His goodness while evil people choose to reject God and His goodness.

There is only good and evil in God’s creation, there is nothing that is a bit good and a bit evil. God is good and evil is everything that rejects God and His good ways. In fact, God only does perfect things. (Deut 32: 4)

So, we are faced with the question, “Why do bad things happen to good people if God only does good things?” In the beginning God made everything and then, in six days God moulded everything from chaos to perfection, when He had achieved perfection, God rested because there was nothing left to do. God was exactly the same before the first day as He was on the seventh day, creating perfection didn’t make Him tired or weak. Why did God do this if He was able to make perfection straight away? For two reasons, God showed us that every good thing comes from Him and He rested on the seventh day because He knew that Adam would choose to sin and everyone, in a sinful world, would need to rest from time to time. It is also important for us to understand that it is God’s will for us to get what we choose. Some people say that it is God’s will for us to suffer, but that is not true. God can use suffering in our lives to make us better and give us a better appreciation of His goodness. (compare Rom 8: 28)

When Adam and Eve sinned, God’s perfection was destroyed because they chose evil instead of good. They chose chaos instead of perfection. Chaos in unpredictable and disordered. Everybody, at some stage in their lives, chooses to sin and disobey God so everybody has chosen to experience chaos instead of order and security. Even good people live in the chaotic world that has be spoiled by sin. Sometimes they experience the consequences of their own actions, sometimes they experience the consequences of other people’s actions and sometimes they are caught in chaos.

However, everyone who believes in the Lord Jesus Christ as Saviour will always be secure in their everlasting life. Not only that, the Lord Jesus Christ has promised us an abundant life as well, that is, we can enjoy a rich and satisfying relationship with Him every day as well.

Bad things may happen to good people but good people will never be destroyed by those bad things. In the end, the Lord will come for those who believe in Him and take them away from this evil world forever.

The hill of God is as the hill of Bashan

http://youtu.be/NK8VWcw8BOM “The Science is in!”

Would you like to read James McNaught’s novel Sinking Sand”? click here: Sinking Sand

http://www.booksthataregood.com/Reference_Books.php

http://twitter.com/#!/jamesmcnaught 

(The views expressed in this blog are my own and should not be taken as inspired in any way.)

Psalm 68:15–21, “The hill of God is as the hill of Bashan; an high hill as the hill of Bashan. Why leap ye, ye high hills? this is the hill which God desireth to dwell in; yea, the LORD will dwell in it for ever. The chariots of God are twenty thousand, even thousands of angels: the Lord is among them, as in Sinai, in the holy place.  Thou hast ascended on high, thou hast led captivity captive: thou hast received gifts for men; yea, for the rebellious also, that the LORD God might dwell among them. Blessed be the Lord, who daily loadeth us with benefits, even the God of our salvation. Selah. He that is our God is the God of salvation; and unto GOD the Lord belong the issues from death. But God shall wound the head of his enemies, and the hairy scalp of such an one as goeth on still in his trespasses.

Bashan was in high mountain region and was a particularly good area for herds and flocks. David compared Zion, the city of the Great King, with that fruitful area because the Lord had placed in His Name in Zion. Even the hills rejoiced because the Lord chose to live among them. The Lord’s enemies had little chance against the Lord because He commands great armies of angels. He frees all the captives because He had defeated captivity and made it captive. The Lord blesses His people every day and He saves them from the results of sin and their enemies. Those who trust the Lord will triumph in the end but those who fight against Him will be defeated forever. Right from the beginning the Lord promised that, one day, the Promised and Anointed One would bruise the serpent’s head forever.

O God, when thou wentest forth before thy people

http://youtu.be/NK8VWcw8BOM “The Science is in!”

Would you like to read James McNaught’s novel Sinking Sand”? click here: Sinking Sand

http://www.booksthataregood.com/Reference_Books.php

http://twitter.com/#!/jamesmcnaught 

(The views expressed in this blog are my own and should not be taken as inspired in any way.)

Psalm 68:7–14, “O God, when thou wentest forth before thy people, when thou didst march through the wilderness; Selah: The earth shook, the heavens also dropped at the presence of God: even Sinai itself was moved at the presence of God, the God of Israel. Thou, O God, didst send a plentiful rain, whereby thou didst confirm thine inheritance, when it was weary. Thy congregation hath dwelt therein: thou, O God, hast prepared of thy goodness for the poor. The Lord gave the word: great was the company of those that published it. Kings of armies did flee apace: and she that tarried at home divided the spoil. Though ye have lien among the pots, yet shall ye be as the wings of a dove covered with silver, and her feathers with yellow gold. When the Almighty scattered kings in it, it was white as snow in Salmon.”

David could remember the time when the Lord took His people away from Egypt, the land of their slavery. He took them through the Wilderness and then gave them the Law at Sinai. Israel were to act as the Lord’s agents in bringing His blessings to all the families of the earth so it was important that they behave in a way that brought honour to His Holy Name. The Lord brought them into the Promised Land and gave them a prosperous and pleasant land to enjoy.

Does God punish Israel?

http://youtu.be/NK8VWcw8BOM “The Science is in!”

Would you like to read James McNaught’s novel Sinking Sand”? click here: Sinking Sand

http://www.booksthataregood.com/Reference_Books.php

http://twitter.com/#!/jamesmcnaught 

(The views expressed in this blog are my own and should not be taken as inspired in any way.)

A former leader of a Hungarian Chasidic community was quoted as saying that the Holocaust was a punishment of the Jews for their sins. Only very great sins could account for the six million victims’ gruesome end. The question that I want to pose today is, “Does God punish Israel?”

For many years the two kingdoms, Israel and Judah lived in the Promised Land and were more or less successful as sovereign nations. The Lord sent prophets to both nations to call them to return to the contract that they had made with Him or He would invoke the penalty clauses of the contract. They refused to listen to the Lord and became like oxen that wouldn’t bow to the yoke. Eventually the Lord sent Israel, and later Judah into exile. At that point, without any consideration of context, we could say that the Lord punished Israel.

However, we should examine the context and see what was really happening. In Gen 1, the Lord God’s account of creation, we see that the first creatures that God blessed were the animals and the second creatures he blessed were the man and woman He created. He also told them to have dominion over all the living and moving creatures. We can learn from this that God’s intention was to bless the man and woman.

In Adam’s account of the sixth day of creation, and his subsequent activities, he recounted the first commandment that the Lord God gave him. The interesting thing about this commandment is the fact that the Lord God put it in the form of a choice. Not only did the Lord tell Adam not to eat of the fruit of the tree, He also told Adam that there would be a consequence for disobedience. This establishes the basic principle for the Lord’s creation, every action has a consequence and the Lord will bring that to bear, in the end. We always get what we choose even though it may seem, for a while, that we are escaping the consequences of our actions.

When Adam and Eve chose to listen to the serpent they were faced with the question, “Do you really want to accept the Lord God’s definition of what is good and evil or do you want to have the authority to make those decisions yourself?” They thought that they were choosing to make the definitions for themselves but they were accepting the serpent’s definition instead. Firstly the Lord God told the serpent what to expect because he was responsible for making a lie and leading the man and the woman astray and he was cursed to to perpetual warfare and eventually one of Eve’s descendants would bruise his head, that is comprehensively and finally defeat him. From that time forward there has always been a great cosmic conflict between good, the Lord God, and evil, Satan. Satan desired to prevent the world from enjoying God’s blessings. There is evidence of that cosmic battle to destroy Israel during King David’s lifetime. (1 Chron 21: 1-6)

Eve wasn’t told that she was cursed but was told what the consequences of her actions would be. She was, however, given the hope of a Descendant Who would, one day, defeat the serpent. Adam was told that the ground would be cursed and he would have to labour and sorrow because he had not exercised the leadership that God entrusted to him; he allowed his wife to be seduced by the serpent.

The first person to be punished in the Bible, as opposed to being cursed, was Cain (Gen 4: 12). He was cast out the Lord’s presence and forced to be a vagrant all the days of his life. Cain had no home and no hope. The Lord warned him to overcome his sin but he didn’t and he was cut off from the Lord. We can see that punishment leads to restlessness, separation and no peace, there was no recovery from Cain’s punishment. Punishment also includes the idea of retribution.

Later we see that the Lord called Abraham and Abraham obeyed the Lord. The Lord promised Abraham that He would use the patriarch as the vector for blessing all the families of the earth (Gen 12: 3) Abraham was counted a righteous because he believed God (Gen 15: 6)

As time went by, the promise the Lord made to Abraham was eventually kept, firstly Abraham and Sarah became the parents of their promised son and, secondly Israel took possession of the Promised Land. The Promise that the Lord made to Abraham was eternal and unconditional. (Gen 15: 18)

In the cosmic battle, Abraham’s descendants became significant targets because, if they could be destroyed, the Lord’s plan of blessing all the families of the earth would be destroyed and evil would triumph However, the Lord loves Israel and will not allow Satan to accomplish his goals (Deut 32: 10).

After Israel took possession of the Promised Land, they remade the contract with the Lord, on their own behalf. There are five conditions for a contract to be valid. (While these are modern conditions they are based on ancient precedents.)

A contract has to state specific details, there must be some consideration, where agreed value is exchanged for agreed value. Both parties must show that they have the ability to satisfy the contract. A contract cannot be made that will violate the law of the land. Both parties must agree that a contract has been made and that it is recorded to the satisfaction of both.

When the Lord made his contract with Abraham they both knew what the details were: Abraham would have son but he had to believe the Lord. Abraham would be the vector of blessing for all the families of the earth and the Lord would bless Abraham and his descendants forever. The Lord had defined what was right and wrong for His creation and He would not behave without integrity. (compare Deut 7: 9) An ancient form of making a contract is described in Gen 15. Both parties knew what was happening and, because Abraham believed God, he knew that God had the capacity to complete the Divine part of the agreement. All Abraham had to do was believe God and he had already demonstrated his ability to believe God. The agreement was recorded for posterity in a document recorded by Abraham’s son,Isaac, after Abraham told him later. (Gen 25: 19)

The contract was made and was binding on both parties. However, by the time that Israel went into the Promised Land, Abraham was unavailable to agree to any changes to the contract that he had made with the Lord. On that occasion, the Lord, who is completely consistent, made a new contract with Israel concerning tenure in the Land rather than permanent possession.

The specifics of the covenant are listed in the Torah. The final form of the contract, as agreed between Israel and the Lord are listed in Deuteronomy. Joshua 8: 30-35 gives an historical account of the final ratification of the contract. The specifics of the contract are stated as a copy of the Law of Moses was written on the stones that had been set up for that purpose. When Joshua read the blessings and the curses, he was stating the consideration, the Lord would give Israel peace and prosperity in the Land and Israel would keep the Law of the Lord. Israel would lose tenure but not permanent ownership of the Land if they disobeyed. The Lord had already demonstrated his capacity to keep the contract because He had brought them from Egypt to the Promised Land. The Lord God also knew that, at some time Israel would be able to keep the contract (see Deut 30: 6) as He promised to write the Law on their hearts. When the Lord brought Israel into the Promised Land, the contract was, essentially, the constitution of the new nation so it was legal. The contact was written on the altar that Joshua had made.

In the section of the contract defining the rewards and the penalties associated with the contract the Lord defined the context for all His future dealings with Israel.

The relevant clause is recorded in Deut 30: 1-5, Where the Lord let Israel know that they would, inevitably, receive the consequences of their actions but these were only designed to bring them to their knees before the Lord so that He would restore them to the Land and His blessing.

The Lord will never punish Israel as He punished Cain, even though they have experienced the consequences of the choices that they have made. Israel has wandered for many years but now they have their own, truncated homeland. In a material sense, Israel was broken before the Lord and returned to their Land after the holocaust. When the Jews were under the threat of genocide the leaders in Palestine agreed that the only protection against any further attempt at Jewish genocide was to have their own Land. Modern Israel is determined to stay in their own Land and prevent any further attempts at genocide. Their only hope of avoiding future genocide is to maintain the presence in the Promised Land that the Lord God promised to Abraham as a permanent possession.

In the spiritual sense they are not yet broken because the Law of the Lord is not yet written in their hearts, as a nation. History has shown that Israel was never cast out of the Lord’s presence forever and they were never put in a place where recovery was impossible. In answer to the question, “Does the Lord God punish Israel?” we can answer with a resounding “NO!” On the other hand, Satan will always work to destroy Israel using any means he can. The Lord God has always worked with Israel to bring them to the place where they, as a nation, remember their contract with the  Lord, accept it in their hearts and obey Him wholeheartedly then they will have peace and tenure in every inch of the Land that the Lord promised to give to Abraham and his legitimate descendants forever. Eventually they will live in peace and prosperity in their own Land when they have, as a nation, fallen on their knees before the Lord in a spiritual sense