When I see the pain and suffering that has historically gone on in the world, and continues to go on today, I ask myself “When Adam and Eve sinned why didn’t God just squash them like a bug and start over?” Yes, they would have been destroyed but the destruction of the two who disobeyed rather than the suffering of millions seems like a pretty fair trade to me.
So why didn’t God just squash them and start over? Was God surprised when Adam and Eve sinned? Did he slap his palm against his forehead and say “Doh, I didn’t see that coming!”? If God is God shouldn’t God have known what will happen before it happens? And if God didn’t know, is God really God?
No, God was not surprised. God knew full well what could happen and what would happen. God also knew the cost and the outcome, and apparently God determined the cost was worth it.
The Bible reveals to us certain truths but it does not reveal everything. It is a mosaic with pieces of the picture scattered in various places. It is our challenge to seek out and understand the various pieces that are revealed to us so that we can see the portions of the picture it portrays clearly. There are three reasons I believe God is allowing these things to occur.
First, we are ground zero in a spiritual war. The Apostle Paul says that “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” [Ephesians: 6:12 ]. The Bible tells how a created spirit rebelled against God [Isaiah 14:12-15; Luke 10:18] and that there was war in heaven [Rev 12:7]. When the dragon/Satan and his followers were defeated, [Rev 12:8] they were cast down to the earth [Rev 12:9] where they rule today [Ephesians 2:2]. When did this war start? We are not specifically told, but I believe there is evidence that it occurred after God finished creating the heavens and the earth and everything that dwelt here. My reason for believing this is that God declared it “very good” when he completed creation [Genesis 1:31]. God created spiritual beings who shouted for joy when God laid the cornerstone of the earth. [Job 38:4-7] God created the heavens and the earth. [Genesis 1:1] God created humans in his image [Genesis 1:26-27] to rule over all the creatures on earth. God planted a garden and placed the first man there [Gen 2:8]; then he created the first woman as a perfect companion for the man [Genesis 2:20-23], intending that they and their descendants replicate the garden throughout the world.[Genesis 1:28] A rebellious spirit entered the picture in the garden, tempting the man and woman. [Gen 3:1-7]. They disobeyed the one prohibition God placed on them and everything changed. What this tells us is that this rebellious spirit already knew of planet earth, the garden of Eden, and the first man and woman. It knew of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and the tree of life. This spirit knew of God’s prohibition from eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. [Genesis 2:17] It has crossed my mind that this whole experience may not have been so much a test of the man and woman in their innocent state as it was a test of this rebellious spirit, and it revealed his true character – this rebellious spirit set out to destroy the creation God declared “very good.”
What motivated this rebellious spirit? We aren’t told clearly but there are some hints. Some have concluded that pride [Isaiah 14:12-14; Ezekiel 28:12-17] inflated the ego of this spirit and that it wanted to be like God (or to be God). I believe this spiritual being might have been motivated by jealousy. Just imagine for a moment that you are this anointed guardian cherub, the model of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty, adorned with precious stones in mountings of gold. You were in Eden, and on the holy mountain of God. You are described as the Morning star, son of dawn! Then God created humans in God’s own image. Unadorned, small, powerless compared to the weakest angel, unable to ascend to the heavens, and yet God walked with them in the garden! They were both, male and female, created in God’s image! Not a physical image, and certainly not God’s equal, but in God’s spiritual and intellectual image.
Regardless of this spiritual being’s motivation, it decided to act, to intervene and corrupt God’s creation. A being that can not create, but can only destroy.
This spiritual being tricked or confused Eve into disobeying God, and Adam went along willingly. Dr. Chuck Missler has stated that he believes Adam chose death with Eve rather than obeying God and being separated from her or loosing her. Was his love for her greater than his love for God? Did he love the creation more than the creator? This is plausible. She was created by God as his perfect partner and prior to her creation he was alone. She was beautiful, soft and cuddly. Even today after generations of corruption, in a healthy relationship the bond between a man and woman, and the influence of a woman over a man, is powerful. It is also possible that the man and woman couldn’t even comprehend what death was as they had never experienced it.
God knew what would happen, and God could have ended it right there, or avoided it by not creating humans. But God also knew that to keep everything from descending into chaos, the whole universe needed to see the outcome of this spirit’s rebellion. It had to play out. Earth is the battlefield in this spiritual war and, depending upon the times and circumstances we are God’s warriors or casualties of that war.
The bible doesn’t say if God created other worlds in the universe with conscious life forms, but the God I believe in is certainly powerful enough to do so. If God did create other worlds and other life forms, I believe that these other worlds, and certainly the spiritual beings that remained faithful to God, are watching the battle unfold here on planet earth. God’s birth in the human form of Jesus might have surprised them and his crucifixion certainly must have horrified them. His resurrection should have caused them to celebrate and given them a pretty good indication of how things are going for the rebellious spirits! Those of us who have chosen to be part of the army of God know that we are on the winning side. We know the outcome! However, that does not mean we won’t suffer and die in this war, because most of us suffer and most of us will die, sleeping until Christ returns and takes us with him. [1 Thessalonians 4:15-17]
God’s second reason for allowing the rebellion to continue is that God wanted the universe to see the full consequences of rebellion: sickness, disease, death, lying, stealing, assault, predation, child abuse, sexual immorality, idolatry, etc. God’s revelation to mankind, what we call the bible, is full of examples of people and nations that suffer great consequences because of their rebellion against God. I personally think that the Apostle Paul summarized the situation described throughout the sixty six books of the Bible very well in his letter to the Christians in Rome. In the book of Romans, Chapter 1 Paul wrote the following: “The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it pain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities – his eternal power and divine nature – have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse. For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles. Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator – who is forever praised. Amen. Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion. Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what not ought to be done. The have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.” [Romans 1 verses 18-32]
This rebellion will culminate at the end of the church age when Christ returns to take away those who have put their faith in him, the dead and the living. Then will come a period of great tribulation which Jesus described “For the there will be great distress, unequaled from the beginning of the world until now – and never to be equaled again. If those days has not been cut short, no one would survive, but for the sake of the elect those days will be shortened.” [Matthew 24: 21-22] This will be followed by the desecration of the rebuilt temple in Jerusalem, the gathering of mankind to fight a great battle against God, and the return of Jesus with the armies of heaven to defeat the armies of mankind and the rebellious spirits. [Revelation 19:11-21]
By then, the whole universe will be completely aware of the consequences of rebellion against God. There will be no confusion, deception or question that rebellion against God leads to corruption, great suffering and death.
But God is not done yet. There is a third and final lesson from God that the universe will finally fully comprehend as a result of what is happening here in this spiritual war. That is, the power of love, specifically God’s love. God, “not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance” [2 Peter 3:9] “so loved the world that he gave his one and only (human born)Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” [John 3:16]. Jesus, God in human form and conceived through the power of God, was born to a human mother, experienced the things that humans experience here in this world, submitted himself fully to God, lived a sinless life and was put to death by the jealous, suspicious Jewish religious leaders of his day, fulfilling the plans of the rebellious spirits who seek to keep people in darkness and rejoice when people reject God. But what a surprise, this was also God’s plan! Knowing that mankind is imperfect, God became human, the unblemished sacrifice that would allow humans through faith in God to be washed clean and stand before God without blame or fear.
Of this love the bible says “his love endures forever” [1 Chronicles 16:34]; “Your love, O Lord, reaches to the heavens” [Psalm 36:5]; “is better than life” [Psalm 63:3]; “The earth is filled with your love, O Lord” [Psalm 119:64]; “Covers all wrongs” [Proverbs 10:12]; is “poured out …into our hearts by the Holy Spirit” [Romans 5:5]; “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.” [1 Corinthians 13:4-8]; “compels us” [2 Corinthians 5:14]; “surpasses knowledge” [Ephesians 3:19]; “covers a multitude of sins” [1 Peter 4:8].
The question each of us must wrestle with is what will we do when we are faced with our imperfection and God’s love? God allows us to accept that love, or to reject it. The choice is individually ours. I encourage you to accept it now, while you still have a chance because once you die – and no one knows the day or time of their death – there is no second chance. As scripture says “Just as man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment, so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many people; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him.” [Hebrews 9:27-28].
Everyone will face Christ in the end. Will you, like me, fall at his feet weeping with gratitude because he willingly died a horrible, painful death in my place, paying the penalty of my rebellious nature and sin? Will you, like me, be washed clean by his blood? Or will you recoil from him in horror knowing that you failed to acknowledge him as God and savior while living and now you, dead in your sin, face him in all his perfect righteousness and glory, your sins exposed to all creation?
Dear reader, I don’t believe you just have a sin problem, I believe you have a Jesus problem! John the Baptist said about Jesus “Look the lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” [John 1:29] Jesus said “Whoever acknowledges me before men, I will also acknowledge him before my Father in heaven. But whomever disowns me before men, I will disown him before my Father in heaven.” [Matthew 10:32-33]
So I ask you directly, will you acknowledge Jesus? Its not difficult but it can be hard to overcome our stubborn, rebellious nature. Here is the path to forgiveness and salvation, sometimes referred to as the “Roman Road”:
“for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood.” [Romans 3:23-25]
“For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in (through) Christ Jesus our Lord.” [Romans 6:23 ]
“That if you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved.” [Romans 10: 9-10]
That’s it. That is all you must do to be “redeemed,” “born again,” or “saved.” Of course that is only the beginning of your journey, but I will let God tell you what he expects of you when you accept his grace. Buckle up, you are in for one heck of a ride!
In Summary
1. Earth is the center of a spiritual war and the whole universe is watching how it plays out.
2. God wanted the whole universe to see the full consequences of rebellion (sin).
3. God wanted to demonstrate the absolute power of love!
4. You are the only one who controls your destiny. Choose wisely.
[All biblical references are taken from the New International Version unless otherwise noted]
January 23, 2022.