When you talk about it, clouds gather overhead. An uninvited sharp breeze makes your heart shiver, your mind cringe, your emotions sag. Confidence in the goodness of God takes a hit.
We wonder why an allegedly all-powerful, good-God continues to permit the wanton perpetration of horrific evil on peoples by the world's tyrannical bullies. The UN's recent report (Feb 17, 2014) puts today's spotlight on Kim Jong-un, North Korea's present edition of Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Amin, Hussein, Assad. You name the thug.
In our wonder, we've already concluded something like "If I were God, I'd police the world's neighborhoods with a bit more dispatch!"
So why doesn't He? The answer is neither simple nor all-that-satisfactory.
THE RAMIFICATIONS OF FREEDOM
If we seek answers to these questions from the revelation of the Christian Bible, such answers all funnel back to the issue of granted freedom. An all-powerful, utterly-good triune God determined to create. Within the vast scope of all that was brought into existence by God's Word (cf. Psalm 33), God created living beings who were granted the privilege of real-choices-which-result-in-actual-consequences (how's RCWRIAC for an acronym?).
Apparently, in the beginning, angels were granted RCWRIAC, and human beings (i.e., Adam and Eve and their offspring) as well.
RCWRIAC is a great thing when right things, or the "good," are chosen. Good for the chooser and good for those who are impacted by the right choices of the chooser.
RCWRIAC is a terrible thing when wrong things, or the "bad," are chosen. Bad for the chooser and even worse, often, for those who are impacted by the wrong choices of the chooser.
So God's most beautiful and capable angel (arguably), Lucifer, enamored with himself, made a very wrong choice in personal pride, attempting a coup of God's throne (choices later exhibited and recapitulated in some of the world's most prideful rulers, cf. Isaiah 14, Ezekiel 28). Lucifer, confirmed in his sin, fell from the presence of God, taking other angels with him, and has been God's prideful arch-enemy ever since.
And so also those who were created in God's very image, Adam and Eve, listening to the inhabited-by-Satan serpent, in their own willful pride, disobeyed the clear command of God. Their choice plunged them and the human race into "sin."
Real Choices Which Result In Actual Consequences impact both the chooser and those who have relationship(s) with and proximity to the chooser. Free choices cut both ways.
THE DIFFICULTY WITH RICOCHETING SIN
Cornelius Plantinga (Not the Way It's Supposed to Be) describes sin like a wantonly destructive bullet which ricochets throughout generations of humanity causing (almost) unpredictable destruction. If Romans 1 is accurate, God in his wrath gives people [who reject the truth revealed about Him] over to the downward spiral of sin's cesspool. People sin and encourage others to sin. God does not readily step in and mitigate the ricocheting consequences. Sin sown reaps a whirlwind of sin. So many are hurt and abused and mistreated and destroyed in the pathways of transgression. Sin is shown to be exceedingly sinful.
It is difficult to watch this unfold in each generation. We want an all-good, all-powerful God to stop it, restrain it, to not allow powerful people who are sinful to hurt the unprotected, the weak, the vulnerable. Children in the womb are aborted. Young girls are sold into the sex-slave trade market. People commit murder and are never caught. Rulers pad their own foreign bank accounts with black-market kick-backs while their people starve in the streets. A generation of people die in the concentration camps. Our hearts cry out, "God, please stop it. Stop it all!"
In essence, we are saying, "We're tired of free choice! We cannot handle it without destroying each other. Take it back; make us robotic!!!!"
LEARNING THE LESSONS OF CHOSEN SIN
Does God ever "step in"? If so, why not more often? Here are some answers I cling to.
First, God respects humanity's freedom and choices, and will hold all men fully accountable in the final day of His judgment. We struggle when this present life is not fair. We desire people to have a chance at "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," and in many places, this good desire is protected by equitable governments. But the wider-lens picture is this. Our life on this fallen planet is simply a very short prelude to an eternity which will dawn in the age to come. "The glory that is coming is not worthy to be compared with our present sufferings." This is not the place nor the era where accountability and justice will fully prevail. Such awaits the age to come.
And thus God calls us to be patient for His coming day, when the accounts will be fully considered, and justice will be meted out by a God who misses nothing. Surely, the Lord is not interested that we fall in love with our present lot, and insist that "this is all there is." God help us! We must have our eyes on what is to come.
Second, God urges us to contend and fight for righteousness today, even as we await His coming day. No better model is ours than godly men and women like Wilber Wilberforce, who paid a personal price to abolish English slavetrading within the British Empire. The Old Testament, reinforced by the teaching of the New Testament, calls on God's people today to defend the widow, the orphan, the defenseless. To cry out against and work for the toppling of the Hitlers and Idi Amins and Kim Jong-uns of the world. Such is the expression of (James) "true religion."
Third, in a fallen and often horribly difficult world, even as we contend for what is right, we are to set our hope completely on Christ and "the grace that is coming to us" in the day He will be revealed. When He comes, all that the prophets said about Him will unfold and reorder "the day" (read Isaiah 2,9,11!)
Fourth, God is also sovereign. He will do what He pleases, and will manage even this fallen world in a way that will finally accomplish His purposes. Even in the world's darkest moments, even when evil seems to overflow, God is free to do what His righteous heart desires, and will respond to the cry of His godly ones.
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