Why does God not stop the 'fights'

Questions from Children

“Why does God not stop the fights in the world?” – a question repeated many times

     This a good question and not easy to answer. There are two or three ways to answer this.

1    In our world there is the ongoing conflict between good and evil.  The Bible storyline presents evil with its lies, deception, conflict, fights, murders, etc ,    as coming into the world by the evil one, Satan, also known as the Devil, the old serpent, the deceiver.  He is historically presented as the source of ‘fights’ and is described by  the Lord Jesus as a murderer, thief and liar. He sought to bring down the Lord Jesus and was the inspiring intelligence that led Judas to betray Jesus.

    Paul found himself ‘hindered‘ by Satan.  Peter said we should ‘resist the Devil’. So to the end of the world, ‘fights’ will continue as this intelligent deceiver seeks to destroy people and oppose God and His Christ.  Finally he will be cast forever into  the lake of fire, and then peace and righteousness will  prevail.

2    The question is often rephrased as ‘why does God allow evil?’

 Incidents and stories from the Bible, and also from recent history, even our own experiences, remind us of the good lessons that can be learned out of bad experiences. You could read the story of Job, who suffered much evil and ‘fights’, yet at the end he was blessed in every way.  You could think about Jesus -- rejected and tortured by His enemies,  yet out of this came blessing for the whole world.  The ‘fights’ between communism and Christians has produced real Christianity in contrast to the shallow church where little persecution prevails. 

    God has a distinct ability to turn evil things to good, if we will let Him.  (Romans 8:28)

3  If God ‘stopped’ the fights in our world, who would He punish.  What I mean is that most ‘fights’ have wrong on both sides. Often both sides have rebelled against God and His ways.  So should He destroy both as a matter of “justice”.  A school chaplain once said in my hearing “I am glad God does not seem just”   - meaning – if God executed justice , we would all be destroyed for we have all sinned.  “The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 6:23)

I would like to make one further observation.  People who spent plenty of time in armchairs, find this a distressing question.  People who suffer hardship often turn to God and find Him very near even when the reasons for hardship are not known. The difference may be the distinction between reasoning and faith. Sometimes God allows bad things to happen, so that people will seek the Lord.

 May the God of all grace give you understanding in all things

More questions to come - others  were answered in previous blogs

John McKee

More children's questions

'Why does God help us a lot?'
       And He does even though we forget to thank Him.   Well all things considered, He does us good, because He loves us.  He is a faithful creator who keeps this finely tuned world spinning. But so much more He does for us like giving us understanding and wisdom.  He provides opportunities for us to seek and know Him.  He puts us into families so that we may not be totally alone.  Jesus said He knows and He cares about us as children belonging to a Father. (Matthew 6)
     Why?     Because He loves. It is His very nature to love, not that we deserve it, but He chooses to love.  Love of course is wiser than to just give what some want. He loves in the wise way, the long term view for the real good of  those who trust Him. The children will remember my illustration - I love chocolate, but God knows too much chocolate is not good for me. So in His wisdom he give me the ability to choose to limit my chocolate intake.

  I think we would do well to stop and count His many blessings  -- many, many, many blessings

John McKee

Children's questions continued

What does God look like?

God is a spirit  - a little bit like the wind  - can't be seen but is yet so powerful.
- like a voice  -  cannot be seen yet can be heard.
-  like electricity  -  you can't see it yet it does such wonderful things.
-   like the sunshine  - you cannot see it, but you can't see much without it

Well the better answer is :
' God looks like Jesus'   the Lord Jesus did say " whoever has seen me has seen the Father (God)"

Children do seek a visible representation of God and we must avoid making images as the heathen do. Perhaps God was very wise to hide the physical appearance of Jesus, so that He could be the Saviour of the world, not just for one race of people.  It is important to think rather about God's character, His attributes, His actions, His promises.

John mcKee

Questions from the children

'Why is God upset ? '

God has good reason to be upset considering that we so often forget or ignore Him. Worse than that is the times we disobey His laws and go against His wisdom. His standards are often rejected.  This is summarized in one word -   sin

However, God is not characterized by continual anger! He is angry with the wicked every day, but our God is a " Blessed God"  ! (happy God).  How can this be?  This is true to His nature, but more so because He has overcome evil through the Lord Jesus Christ.  The coming of Jesus into the world was God's design to conquer sin and set believers free from fear and the control of satan. The death of the Lord Jesus makes forgiveness possible, and God is 'happy' to forgive all who believe in His Son (Jesus). In fact the angels rejoice every time someone chooses to turn from sinful ways to trust in the Lord Jesus.  So really heaven is a happy place and our God is a rejoicing God !!
    Both the Old testament and the new describe  this:

"Oh what joy for those whose disobedience is forgiven, whose sins are put out of sight. Yes what joy for those whose record the Lord has cleared of sin."    Romans 4.7NLT

  Will you be one of the many who can sing 'O joy of the justified , joy of the free.......'

In the end the song will be:
    "Praise the Lord
         for the Lord our God , the Almighty reigns
      Let us be glad and rejoice
         and let us give honour to Him"
                         Revelation 19.6

John  McKee

Jesus begins to preach

I have begun reading again the story of Jesus. Matthew records significant details of His background, birth, baptism and the battle with the devil.  Then He began to preach.

      His first word is “repent for the kingdom of heaven is near”    -  Turn to God

He was qualified to preach ‘repent’, as He was truly one with God and preaching for God. His eyes saw two things:

1.    A people astray from God

2.    A people ignorant of their own condition as sinners condemned by God.

So from the standpoint of God, and with the compassion of understanding, He preaches “Repent!”

Repent, means a change of mind. It is implied , as John the Baptist preached, that repentance would evidence itself by a change of behaviour.  But now that the King had arrived, the emphasis changes from better behaviour, to a change of mind regarding Jesus the Christ, Jesus  the  Messiah, Jesus the King, Jesus the Saviour.  Over and over, the message of the Kingdom drawing near is a direct reference to the presence of the king Himself.  This is the real meaning of the expression “The kingdom of God is within you” being  better translated “among you”.

     

  It is true the Kingdom of God is not what we eat and drink, rather it is righteousness, love and joy in the Holy Spirit, but primarily the Kingdom is connected to the King.  This is why Peter looks into the future for his entrance into the eternal kingdom, when the King returns.

       And so the King calls people to become His subjects in His Kingdom  -  He can heal their diseases (Matthew 4.2-25) , He gives a superior law (Matthew 5-7), .  At the end of Matthews gospel we hear the most important question “What should I do with Jesus who is called the Christ?” (Matthew 27.22)

    Turn around from straying ways, look closely on Jesus and be not faithless but believing.  He is the true King who saves us from our sins to forgiveness, from being lost to being accepted, from hell to heaven. “ Repent and believe the Good News" today.

John McKee

Prophecy of the Lord Jesus

Matthew 21.32 “This generation will not pass until all these things be fulfilled”

Someone has asked – ‘what does this Bible verse mean?’

One is tempted to say ‘I don’t know’, but I will suggest some detail to help fit it into it’s context.

Luke 21.6, 12-24 can generally be seen as fulfilled e.g. The stones of the temple were torn down in AD 70 by the Roman general Titus and his army. The Christians were persecuted intensely, and the city of Jerusalem was surrounded by the Roman army, just as Jesus said. It is reported that the Christians saw this prophecy being  fulfilled before their eyes, so the fled and thus were saved the dreadful destruction of the city!

The end of verse 24 is most significant – “the times of the Gentiles”    It was God’s intention that Israel be the head of the nations.  But since the destruction of the temple in AD 70, Israel has been dispersed across the face of the earth.  This last 2000years has obviously been the ‘times of the Gentiles’  The resurgence of Israel since 1948 along with disasters and political tensions may well be the new leaves of the ‘fig tree’.

Now what about verses 25,26,27,28   -  there have been times of  strange solar happenings (some have taught that Jesus did return at the end of the 1^st century!). Others see the last days as encompassing all the last 2000 years with its many seasons of disasters and wars.

I think rather like Daniel 9, there is an unexplained gap.  Daniel 9 lays out a timetable of years (sevens) between the building of Zerubbabel’s  temple and  the cutting off of the Messiah AD30 and the destruction of the temple AD70. Others  have verified the accuracy of Daniel’s prophetic timetable. However  Daniel’s timetable goes on to predict a covenant treaty between Israel and some world power. This treaty will then be broken after three and a half years.  This seems to not be yet fulfilled, like Luke 21.25-27.

Could it be that God has inserted the ‘mystery’ of the church into this gap? – a period of time when not only do we have the Gentiles political domination, but also God at work, calling out of the nations, a people for Himself, for His Son, as distinct from the purpose given to Israel.

The Lord did say in one parable, that the master of the vineyard would be away for a ‘long time’ to receive a kingdom, before he would return to claim the inheritance of the vineyard (Israel).

Well I can accept that explanation, but what of our verse V32  “this generation “  A different translation reads “this tribe”  Israel has never been extinguished, (against all odds). Some have tried but I rather think that God has a future for Israel. Israel is in blindness and unbelief  as a nation (Romans 11), but God has yet to fully fulfil His promises to Abraham and David.  God is able to bring them to new birth, gathering the dead bones to life  so that His prophetic word will be vindicated.  So I am suggesting that the “generation” of our verse is Israel as a tribe.

Other thoughts may be sent to johnmckee@internode.on.net

The Questions of God

God delights to ask questions - not to find out information, but to make connection with us. I will give a sample.

In the garden of Eden, the voice of God rings out  "  Adam where are you? "
Again to Eve the question " What have you done ?"
Then to Cain " Why are you angry? "
Telling questions I think you will agree, but each indicates God as the one seeking the wanderer !

To Job God replies "Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth .....? "

Through Isaiah, God ask's "Why do you labour for that which does not satisfy ?"

I encourage you to be observant of and also listening to the questions of God. He may well be drawing near to make contact...........'today if you will hear harden not your heart.'

John McKee