![]() We live in a world that is marred by sin, so difficulties and disappointments are bound to cross our path. The truth is, you can’t know all the reasons why God lets bad things happen. How can a God who loves me allow me to experience pain and suffering? It just doesn’t seem to add up. Learn How to Impact the World at Geneva Collegeĭoes the prospect of impacting the world excite you? Do you want a career that allows you to use your God-given talents to make a difference in your life, your community, and the world around you? If so, you should learn more about Geneva’s biblical studies program.įor more information, contact us at 85 or Get ready to make your mark on this world.Have you ever wondered, Why did God let me suffer that injury? lose my job? have a car accident? forget that appointment? have a fight with my spouse? let my parents get divorced? let me be born with a defect? God has made everything for its purpose, even hurtful and unjust oppressors. They have their purpose “for the day of trouble,” sometimes bringing God’s judgment on His straying people, and sometimes bringing God’s judgment down on themselves (Romans 9:22). Godly people, therefore, should not fret at the prosperity of the wicked (Psalm 73). (Recall what happened in Iraq to its Christian communities and many others after the United States decided to play God and uproot Iraq’s atrocious dictator.) Third, God gives people time to repent and time to the repentant to grow in grace. Second, God does not remove evil people immediately because doing so may harm the righteous, as Jesus taught in His parable of the wheat and the tares (Matthew 13:24-30). Starting over again in a New World, as the Puritans discovered, never works as planned because the Old World always comes right along into the New. Why doesn’t God destroy them completely all at once and leave the world clean? He did that once, in the Flood, but evil survived because the human heart remained the same. God’s punishments of the wicked in this age are only partial, and often they thrive for a long time. God said to Pharaoh, king of Egypt, “But indeed for this purpose I have raised you up, that I may show my power in you (Exodus 9:16).” God makes even the wrath of man to praise Him (Psalm 67:10). Second, the Lord also uses the wicked to show His justice and power when the time comes to call them to account. God made the wicked “for the day of trouble.” How so? First, God uses the wicked to punish His people’s sin, calling Assyria the rod of His anger (Isaiah 10), and using Babylon for the same purpose (Habbakkuk). About some things in our fallen and corrupted world, God gives us clues in His Word, for example, His purposes for wicked men like Joseph Stalin, or Pol Pot. Some things, God tells us, we will never know because His ways are higher than our ways (Isaiah 55:9), and some of His plans He keeps sealed until the end of time (Revelation 10:4). The purpose of other things like the appendix, take careful study and time to figure out. Sometimes the purpose is easy to figure out: every sheepherder knows that the main purpose of a ram and ewe copulating is to get more lambs. Like a good engineer, God made everything for a purpose. “Junk” DNA, it is now known, plays a vital part in the human genome.) It is a “safe house” for good bacteria, which repopulate our digestive system after an illness or a course of antibiotics. ![]() ![]() (The appendix, however, does have a purpose. Some philosophers, not unreasonably, have pointed to the appendix and junk DNA as evidence against a Creator and in favor of purposeless evolution. ![]() Concerning organs in living creatures, they unavoidably ask, “What’s it for?” When they cannot find an organ’s purpose, they label it “vestigial,” like the appendix, or “junk,” like certain DNA segments. Scientists can study only what God has made. Bill Edgar, former chair of the Geneva College Board of Trustees, Former Geneva College President and longtime pastor in the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America (RPNCA) Proverbs 16:4 – The LORD has made everything for its purpose, even the wicked for the day of trouble.īy Dr. OctoProverbs 16:4 – “The LORD has made everything for its purpose." ![]()
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