Anyone familiar with the story of the garden of Eden at the beginning of Genesis will likely have had the same thought as I’ve had: Where was God when Eve was being tempted by the serpent, and when Adam subsequently fell, bringing death and destruction?
Surely, if God had been there in the garden, he could have prevented Adam and Eve from falling? He could have reminded them what was going to happen if they failed that one simple test. He could have stopped the serpent from telling its lie in the first place.
I’m not one of those who blames the devil for everything that goes wrong. Sometimes it’s my own fault. Sometimes it’s my neighbour’s fault, or the government’s, or nature, or plain coincidence. Sometimes God is teaching me a lesson. Sometimes, however, there’s a dark force at work. Why, then, if God is the almighty creator of all things, does He allow this dark force to operate?
THE EXAMPLE OF JOB
Have you read the story of Job? Job was an upright man who spent his life serving the Lord, but who was assaulted in the most terrible ways by Satan. Where was God when that happened? If you’ve read the story carefully you’ll find that it was indirectly God’s doing that Satan tested Job, because He drew Satan’s attention to Job in the first place. It was then that Satan wanted to put Job to the test. Had the Lord not mentioned Job, it seems, Job would have lived his life unscathed. And where was God when trouble came and Job needed him the most? The answer is that the Lord gave Satan almost, but not quite, free reign:
The Lord said to Satan, “Very well, then, he is in your hands; but you must spare his life” (Job 2:6).
Satan, our accuser, was in the throne-room with God (Job 2:1). How? Why didn’t the Lord kick him out? Why did He even listen to him? Doesn’t this story fly in the face of all we want to think about our creator? Don’t we want to think that He’s working to make our lives into trouble-free times of endless blessing?
THE WILDERNESSES OF LIFE
Fast forward to the New Testament. Here we find Jesus, the Son of God, actually being put in harm’s way by the Spirit of God:
Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil (Matthew 4:1 NKJV).
Was God looking for trouble for His own son? Couldn’t He just have thrown Satan into the pit then and there? He could, but instead he intentionally led Jesus to be tempted, and let Satan get away afterwards.
DELAYED JUSTICE
You can’t read far into the gospels without coming across someone being delivered from demons by Jesus. On more than one occasion, the demons asked Jesus Christ something along these lines:
“What have we to do with You, Jesus, You Son of God? Have You come here to torment us before the time?” (Matthew 8:29).
Why is the time of torment still future for these haters of God and man? Why didn’t it happen long ago? Since God is said in Scripture to be all-powerful and almighty, why does He allow these beings to remain on the earth?
SERVANTS OF GOD
One of the many likely answers to this, I’m convinced, is that God employs even fallen angels to fulfill his purposes, including the Curse. However, another reason as we’ve seen from these few examples, is that God employs them to tempt and to test us all. We’re all being tested to see what we’re made of.
JUSTICE NOW
God also uses these beings to enact His justice. This is highly ironic, since they themselves will face His justice at the appropriate time. This further demonstrates the complete authority our God has over all things. Here’s an example from the Old Testament. God wanted Ahab, a king who had been in constant rebellion against Him, to meet disaster:
I saw the Lord sitting on his throne with all the multitudes of heaven standing on his right and on his left. And the Lord said, ‘Who will entice Ahab king of Israel into attacking Ramoth Gilead and going to his death there?’ “One suggested this, and another that. Finally, a spirit came forward, stood before the Lord and said, ‘I will entice him.’ “‘By what means?’ the Lord asked. “‘I will go and be a deceiving spirit in the mouths of all his prophets,’ he said (2 Chronicles 18:18-21 NIV).
THE REALITY OF EVIL
Evil is a reality. You only have to watch television for a while to know that. And unfortunately, human nature can be as dark as that of any fallen angel. Animals eat each other, yes-they do it for food-but the evil of humanity goes far beyond that. Evil as a force in human nature is the only rational explanation for what we see going on around us and throughout history. We see it in the world of politics, in the promotion of immorality, in abortion for convenience, in war, and in deception-sometimes within church walls.
Make no mistake: we’re in a war. The guns are in Ukraine but the darkness is in our presence here in the West, and sometimes in our own homes. Where is God? Why doesn’t He stop it all? This is the question we all ask, believer and unbeliever alike. Scripture tells us that the time is coming when He will.
From our examples above we can see that God allows tempting and testing for his own reasons. Someone once asked me when I was a new Christian if I thought life was a test. I replied that no, it isn’t. I was wrong. It’s true that not all of life is a test, but we are, as sure as eggs are eggs, being tested in many ways. The true condition of our hearts is borne out in our reactions to those tests and temptations. We can see in our world that the further the rebellious and the wicked and the twisted go away from our God, the more corrupt their natures become:
But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived (2 Timothy 3:13 KJV).
The aim of the believer is to become more Christ-like, despite what goes on all around us and sometimes in our own hearts and minds. We’re all affected by the people who’re in rebellion against our God and who fall to the schemes of the evil one. However, we don’t have to be impacted negatively by them in a spiritual sense. The government may wreck the economy, promote evil and bless the wicked; our loved ones may desert us and wreck our lives; the temptation to sin may be powerful and alluring, but our position in Christ is secure when we look to Him. Just as Jesus and the apostles suffered physically at the hands of evil men and yet were eternally secure in the hands of our God, so, as our world crumbles around us we too can be eternally secure:
I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand. I and the Father are one” (John 10:28-30).
Fuel for Faith, Food for Thought 