Gwen Frangs / Corrandulla / 12 June 2022
We are all aware that bad things happen on this earth. Bad things happen which leave people angry and confused regarding why a good God would allow such things to happen. I believe that God wants to give us real answers about why He is allowing the bad things to happen, rather than mere platitudes and He is not afraid to address the difficult questions that we want to ask or angry with us for asking these questions. This article is an attempt to provide you with some real answers regarding why God is allowing bad things like death, sickness, child abuse, natural disasters etc. to happen on the earth.
I believe that Jesus tried to explain the nature of the situation that exists on this earth to us when he told the parable of the wheat and the tares.
24 Jesus told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. 25 But while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away. 26 When the wheat sprouted and formed heads, then the weeds also appeared.
27 “The owner’s servants came to him and said, ‘Sir, didn’t you sow good seed in your field? Where then did the weeds come from?’
28 “‘An enemy did this,’ he replied.
“The servants asked him, ‘Do you want us to go and pull them up?’
29 “‘No,’ he answered, ‘because while you are pulling the weeds, you may uproot the wheat with them. 30 Let both grow together until the harvest. At that time I will tell the harvesters: First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned; then gather the wheat and bring it into my barn.’”
Matthew 13:24-30
To understand this parable, I believe that one has to fully understand what the wheat represents. The wheat is not just the church at a single point in time, it is the church throughout time. What God knows is that to get the tares out of the field will destroy, not only some of the present wheat, but also some of the future wheat. This is because, as is the case with wheat, which begets more wheat, the church of the present begets the church of the future. If the present church is damaged or destroyed, it will impact the future church, because the future church will not be planted.
If God intervened at any point in the timeline that comes before the end of time, He would be destroying those of His children who have not yet been born. This is why He allows the suffering to continue, because He cannot intervene until the end of time, because it will only be then that all of the wheat will have been produced and harvested. He is saving the church – the entire church. He has bequeathed and wedded the entire church to His son. He is not prepared to sacrifice a single one, even in the face of the depravity that is going on while He is busy doing this.
If you find yourself wishing that all of this suffering could end, as I do, spare a thought for those future Christians who have yet to be born, because they are also members of God’s family. If this earth is destroyed prematurely they will never exist. For the sake of those people, we have to try and hang in here, even though the going is really tough and we wish that God would intervene immediately. In the meantime, we can be His hands, feet and voice on this earth and increase the church, because as the church increases, the less suffering there will be on the earth. As we see this terrible suffering on the earth, we can be encouraged by the knowledge that more Christians are being born each day.
Why is it that God allows bad things like the abduction and murder of children to occur? We know from what Jesus taught that God the Father sees everything that is done in secret and that He knows the future, so why does He not intervene to stop these things from happening? Firstly, I don’t think that He can personally intervene because He doesn’t have a body. He is an invisible spirit and He needs to inhabit a physical body in order to be able to act in a material world. Therefore, in order to intervene He needs to use angels or human beings to do the actual physical intervention on His behalf. However, is it not the case that children are protected by angels, so how does evil get past these angels in order to abduct a child?
I always assumed that all children are protected by angels, however, the Bible makes it clear that everything is done according to whether people are in covenant with God or not. When Jesus said in Matthew 18:
10 “See that you do not despise one of these little ones. For I tell you that their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father in heaven.
Matthew 18:10
He was speaking to Jewish people and the children that were present were Jewish children.
These children were part of the people Who He had a covenant with and, so, He was able to have His angels protecting them. It is unlikely that He would have been able to have had angels protecting the children of people who were not in covenant relationship with Him, because these children belonged to people who were in covenant relationship with other gods. The children of these people belonged to those gods and those gods would have objected to God sending angels to look after their property. Therefore, it is most likely that the children of people who are not Christians are not protected by angels, not because God doesn’t want to protect them, but because He is legally unable to protect them. This means that the children of non-Christians are extremely vulnerable to being attacked by the enemy. This should really be an incentive for the church to evangelize, because if one brings the parents of these children to Christ, God will be able to protect their children as well. However, even though a child who is abducted is not under the direct protection of God’s angels, I believe that He will try to do something to help that child because He loves children so much. However, He faces an additional challenge to His being able to help.
In the Old Testament it is clear that there are certain territories that are controlled by evil spiritual entities. In the Book of Daniel the Angel of Yahweh has to fight against the Prince of Persia in order to get to Daniel to answer Daniel’s prayer. It takes Him three weeks to fight His way through to Daniel:
12 Then he continued, “Do not be afraid, Daniel. Since the first day that you set your mind to gain understanding and to humble yourself before your God, your words were heard, and I have come in response to them. 13 But the prince of the Persian kingdom resisted me twenty-one days. Then Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, because I was detained there with the king of Persia. 14 Now I have come to explain to you what will happen to your people in the future, for the vision concerns a time yet to come.”
Daniel 10:12-14
I suspect that when a child is abducted that they are taken into territory that is under the control of entities that are similar to the Prince of Persia and that God’s angels are not able to fight their way through on time to be able to assist the victim. I believe that it is possible for human beings to enter those territories more easily than angels because human beings were originally given authority by God over the entire earth. But, unfortunately, human beings lack the information regarding the location of the victim and there is a scarcity of individuals who have the capacity to hear God well enough for Him to be able to communicate that information to them for something to be done to help the victim in time. There are those who have the capacity to hear God well enough for Him to communicate the information to them, but who would not be able to cope with the information itself or with the manner in which their lives would change if it became publicly known that they could hear Him well enough to find a missing child. Therefore, God does not give them this sort of information, because He knows that ultimately it would destroy them. What is happening to children at the hands of the enemy is horrific. Everyday in the news there are cases of children being murdered or abused. We have to get out there and evangelize in order to try and prevent these things from happening to children. The more Christians that there are in the world, the better it will be for children.
Why does God allow people to die of illnesses such as cancer? I do not believe that God wants anyone to be sick. However, He cannot heal people who don’t belong to Him because they belong to the kingdom of darkness. As far as Christians are concerned, there could be a number of reasons which prevent them from being healed by God. Perhaps their lives are not very happy and He knows that they will be happier in Heaven. Perhaps their faith in Him is limited and He does not seem to be able to heal people if they do not have the faith to be healed. Jesus was unable to heal people in His own hometown because they did not believe that He could. I have experienced divine healing on only one occasion in my life. As I was praying to be healed, I was thinking about something that God has called me to do in the future to help children. Perhaps that had something to do with why God healed me, because He had something specific in mind for me to do for Him? However, if there is nothing specific that He is calling a Christian to do, perhaps He is happy for them to come home to Heaven. The evangelist Smith Wigglesworth said that if we really understood what Heaven was like, that we would not do a single thing to stop ourselves from going there. God knows what Heaven is like and that it is a far better place to be in than on the earth, so why would He stop a person from going there unless He has a special reason for them to remain on the earth? When it comes to children, I suspect that if God knows that their future will not be an easy one or that they will not come to know Him as an adult, that He will rather let them come home to Heaven as a child, rather than to let them grow up and turn away from Him. But, how about all of the genetically based diseases, for example congenital diseases, genetic disorders, hereditary diseases and the various syndromes, why has God allowed Christians to have these? Firstly, God is not responsible for these. The most likely explanation for these is provided in Genesis 6 where we are told that angels married women and had offspring with them. One would assume that the flood wiped out all of these offspring, however, it is possible that the genetic damage was carried through the flood into all of us by Noah. Noah may have been carrying this mixed genetic information. We find the following account of the birth of Noah in the Book of Enoch, chapter 106:
1. And after some days my son Methuselah took a wife for his son Lamech, and she became pregnant by him and bore a son. 2. And his body was white as snow and red as the blooming of a rose, and the hair of his head †and his long locks were white as wool, and his eyes beautiful†. And when he opened his eyes, he lighted up the whole house like the sun, and the whole house was very bright. 3. And thereupon he arose in the hands of the midwife, opened his mouth, and †conversed with† the Lord of righteousness. 4. And his father Lamech was afraid of him and fled, and came to his father Methuselah. 5. And he said unto him: ‘I have begotten a strange son, diverse from and unlike man, and resembling the sons of the God of heaven; and his nature is different and he is not like us, and his eyes are as the rays of the sun, and his countenance is glorious. 6. And it seems to me that he is not sprung from me but from the angels, and I fear that in his days a wonder may be wrought on the earth. 7. And now, my father, I am here to petition thee and implore thee that thou mayest go to Enoch, our father, and learn from him the truth, for his dwelling-place is amongst the angels.’ 8. And when Methuselah heard the words of his son, he came to me to the ends of the earth; for he had heard that I was there, and he cried aloud, and I heard his voice and I came to him. And 1 said unto him: ‘Behold, here am I, my son, wherefore hast thou come to me?’ 9. And he answered and said: ‘Because of a great cause of anxiety have I come to thee, and because of a disturbing vision have I approached. 10. And now, my father, hear me: unto Lamech my son there hath been born a son, the like of whom there is none, and his nature is not like man’s nature, and the colour of his body is whiter than snow and redder than the bloom of a rose, and the hair of his head is whiter than white wool, and his eyes are like the rays of the sun, and he opened his eyes and thereupon lighted up the whole house. 11. And he arose in the hands of the midwife, and opened his mouth and blessed the Lord of heaven. 12. And his father Lamech became afraid and fled to me, and did not believe that he was sprung from him, but that he was in the likeness of the angels of heaven; and behold I have come to thee that thou mayest make known to me the truth.’ 13. And I, Enoch, answered and said unto him: ‘The Lord will do a new thing on the earth, and this I have already seen in a vision, and make known to thee that in the generation of my father Jared some of the angels of heaven transgressed the word of the Lord. 14. And behold they commit sin and transgress the law, and have united themselves with women and commit sin with them, and have married some of them, and have begot children by them. 17. And they shall produce on the earth giants not according to the spirit, but according to the flesh, and there shall be a great punishment on the earth, and the earth shall be cleansed from all impurity. 15. Yea, there shall come a great destruction over the whole earth, and there shall be a deluge and a great destruction for one year. 16. And this son who has been born unto you shall be left on the earth, and his three children shall be saved with him: when all mankind that are on the earth shall die [he and his sons shall be saved]. 18. And now make known to thy son Lamech that he who has been born is in truth his son, and call his name Noah; for he shall be left to you, and he and his sons shall be saved from the destruction, which shall come upon the earth on account of all the sin and all the unrighteousness, which shall be consummated on the earth in his days. 19. And after that there shall be still more unrighteousness than that which was first consummated on the earth; for I know the mysteries of the holy ones; for He, the Lord, has showed me and informed me, and I have read (them) in the heavenly tablets.
Book of Enoch chapter 106
I am usually very careful about using pseudepigraphal books as a source of information, but when it comes to finding an explanation for why all the genetic based diseases, disorders and syndromes exist, I find this to be the best explanation. The interbred genetic material created by angels marrying women survived the flood because it was in Noah, inherited from his mother’s side of the family, and it was passed on to all of us. This explains why Jesus had to have a body especially prepared by God, so that it would be free of this mixed genetic material. It also explains why the Israelites encountered giants in the promised land and why David had to fight a giant named Goliath. To be healed from all of the diseases, disorders and syndromes that were caused by this requires a creative miracle, because it requires that our genetic material is recreated. Not many Christians have the faith for miracles these days. I know this, because I am one of them. However, I believe that if a Christian does have that sort of miracle believing faith, that God will be able to heal them from the genetic damage which was caused to human beings by the sin of angels intermarrying with women.
The flood of Noah, which God used to wipe sinful mankind off the earth, provides an explanation for some of the natural disasters which we have on the earth, such as earthquakes and volcanic eruptions and for the existence of predation on the earth. The Bible says that in order to cause the flood all of the springs of the great deep burst forth:
11 In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, on the seventeenth day of the second month—on that day all the springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened. 12 And rain fell on the earth forty days and forty nights.
Genesis 7:11-12
This means that great subterranean reservoirs or chambers deep inside the earth expelled their contents at the same time. This would have involved a great tectonic event which displaced the earth’s crust, causing the tectonic instability which continues on to the present day. It would have moved the continents out of place into locations which were not optimal for vegetation to grow in, resulting in food shortages for animals and causing some of them to turn on others in their desperation to find sufficient food. Over time these animals evolved into the predators we know today.
I think that God has done a great deal to try and stop the bad things from happening. He created the church on earth to reach people for Him, so that they stop doing bad things. He had to come to earth and die in order to bring the church into existence. I believe that He tries to warn people about bad things that are going to happen before they happen, but that His warnings are overlooked. In a previous article I wrote about how for a number of days prior to my wedding, I kept getting a picture of a needle and thread in my head, but I dismissed it because I was getting a brand new wedding dress, so I didn’t think that anything would go wrong with it. However, while I was getting dressed for the wedding the zip on the dress broke and there was nothing else available to hold it together except some pins. As I was walking up the aisle my father stepped on the bottom of the dress and the pins came out of place. I ended up standing in front of all of the wedding guests while the wedding photographer pinned my dress together again. God did not want me to go through that embarrassing incident and He tried to warn me, but I pushed aside the warning. It is very possible that God is trying to warn people all the time about bad things, but that they simply disregard His warnings. It is imperative that we become more focused on what God is trying to tell us. We need to examine each idea and each vision to determine if He is trying to tell us something, rather than dismissing them and moving on with our busy lives.
Sometimes God will allow bad things to happen to Christians if Satan asks to test them. This happened to Peter. I don’t believe that God has much of a choice regarding whether or not to allow this testing to happen to a Christian. Satan asks to test Christians to try and show to the angels in Heaven that God is wrong with regard to wanting to keep human beings in existence rather than destroying us because of our sinfulness. When Satan tests us in this way, he throws temptations and trials our way that are extremely hard to bear up under unless one is relying fully on God. Unfortunately, we often fail the test, but we learn through failing it just how much we need Jesus. However, there are people who succeed and God is able to point to these people as examples of why He should not destroy us all. The ultimate example for Him to point to is Jesus, because Jesus got everything right. He is the ultimate piece of evidence that human beings should be allowed to continue to exist. Jesus made it clear that Satan is responsible for many of the bad things that happen on the earth:
The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.
John 10:10 NIV
Satan also has power to create. We can know this because when Moses was confronting pharaoh, pharaoh’s wise men were able to turn their staffs into snakes and after God brought frogs out of the Nile, the wise men were also able to create frogs to come out of the Nile. Satan used people, lightning, wind and disease to attack Job’s family and Job himself. Therefore, we have to be aware that many of the bad things that have happened on this earth were the creation of Satan and not of God and that Satan is actively creating bad things and situations on this earth. Wars, weather disasters and infectious diseases can be attributed to him.
Why does God allow people to die? Genesis 6 makes it clear that God allows people to die because of human sin:
And Yahweh said: ‘My Spirit shall not strive with man forever, for indeed he is flesh and yet shall be his days a hundred and twenty years.
Genesis 6:3 Interlinear
From this scripture we learn that when human beings were originally created by God, He did not intend for us to die. This is actually possible as human DNA contains the genetic material necessary to grow new teeth and to even regenerate other parts of the body, but that code isn’t “turned on.” Clearly, in Genesis 6:5, God made some changes to our human genetic material to prevent us from living beyond 120 years. He did this because He did not want the Holy Spirit to have to fight with sinful individuals forever, as would be the case if He continued to allow us to live forever. Can you imagine if individuals like Hitler could simply go on living forever on the earth, causing perpetual destruction and amassing greater and greater power? As human beings became increasingly sinful, God had no choice but to stop human beings from living forever.
Because this is a real world filled with real circumstances, God is sometimes faced with having to choose a difficult route for us to travel through in our lives because the eventual outcome will be better for us. We find an example of God having to choose between two routes for His people in Exodus 13:
17 When Pharaoh let the people go, God did not lead them on the road through the Philistine country, though that was shorter. For God said, “If they face war, they might change their minds and return to Egypt.” 18 So God led the people around by the desert road toward the Red Sea…
Exodus 13:17-18
We see from this that the route through the Philistine country was shorter, but the eventual outcome of taking the Israelites through that route would have been that they might have returned to Egypt. This portion of scripture teaches us that God actively considers which is the best route to lead us through in the course of our lives. The route that He is sometimes forced to take us through, because there is no better alternative available to Him, can involve some very difficult experiences. They are not experiences which God has created or which He can simply clear away. They are not experiences which God takes us through in order to make us grow as Christians. While it is true that God does take us through growth experiences, they are not the same as the experiences which I am discussing here. The growth experiences that God uses in our lives to build character into us are gentler experiences and do not cause the level of discomfort and pain that the experiences that I am describing here cause to us. These experiences are not experiences that God actually wants to put us through. He has no choice because the other routes are worse or there may not be another route. These experiences are not things that we have any choice over ourselves or that have been brought about by poor choices on our part. In my own life there have been three times when God has had to take me through a very difficult route because to not have taken me through would have had some serious consequences further on in my life. It is when God walks us through these kinds of experiences that we truly have to have faith in Him. We have to trust that even though we are walking through a wilderness and we can see no reason why we should have to be going through the experience, that it is the best way through for us because He can see the eventual outcome. I recently questioned one of these experiences, asking God how it could possibly be categorized under the scripture ‘all things work together for good to those who love the Lord and are the called according to His purpose (Romans 8:28).’ I told Him that it looked to me like His word had not held true when it came to my experience because it seemed to have not served any purpose and I had been left deeply emotionally damaged by it. He opened the eyes of my understanding to see exactly how that deeply painful experience had played an integral part in bringing me to the place where I am today. These experiences can cause deep emotional damage and God cannot just wave a magic wand and make that damage disappear. We have to allow Him to bind up the wounds that are left by the experience. It is vitally important that we do not allow our faith in Him to be damaged by the experience, because then He will not be able to get us to our promised land because we will not trust Him to continue to lead us there.
Therefore, we see that God is allowing bad things to happen because:
- He is a parent and His children are His priority.
- He has had to make certain changes in order to restrain sin on the earth, such as changing the environment on the earth in order to create the flood and introducing human death.
- He sees the bigger picture and will allow some things to happen because He knows that in the long run the outcome will be better for an individual.
We see that bad things also happen because:
- God is constrained in His actions as a result of evil angelic entities, which prevent Him from accomplishing everything that He would like to do on this earth.
- In the angelic world there are spiritual laws regarding covenant and ownership of people that God has got to uphold Himself.
- God’s decisions do not go unchallenged in Heaven. Satan consistently tries to undermine the will of God and to challenge God’s authority.
- Satan and his angels consistently make bad things happen on the earth.
The Bible offers us hope that a time is coming when all of the bad things will end. In the meantime we need to hold onto our God and continually strive to strengthen our relationship with Him. Satan will try to confuse us and to make us question the goodness of God. But, we must hold firmly to our faith in God when confronted by the bad things, rather than to question His morality or character. This is because God is the One Who is able to bring us through these things. We must not allow doubts about His goodness to separate us from Him during those times when we need His help the most. This is what Satan wants, to separate us from God when we need Him the most, by placing thoughts of doubt about God into our heads. We need to cast those thoughts aside and firmly place our faith in God.
