Israel
sinned again and departed from God. God sent the Midianites to oppress them.
The Midianites took everything from Israel. The Israelites suffered as a result
and they cried to God. God heard and called a man named Gideon to deliver
Israel. The angel of the Lord came to encourage Gideon, telling him that the
Lord God was with him (verse 12).
Gideon
was not convinced God was with them and asked: “If the LORD be with us, why
then is all this befallen us?” Gideon simply couldn’t believe it. Gideon is
saying to the angel of the Lord: “Pardon me! Did you say God is with us? But I
don't see it!”
Have
you ever felt the same way? Oftentimes people, even Christians, get upset at
God as Gideon did because they don't see God working wonders in their life.
Their reasoning is: If God is with us, we shouldn’t be suffering now.
Non-Christians
almost always raise this question: If God is good and God is all-powerful, then
how can there be evil in the world? Since there is evil, there must be no God.
Or if there is a God, He must not be good or He must not be all-powerful. The
problem of evil has always been seen as a way to show that Christianity is
logically inconsistent.
Gideon
failed to see this one thing: it was because that Israel had sinned that this
evil came upon them. It was the consequence of them leaving God. Likewise, men
failed to see they are reaping the consequences of their actions.
There
are certain things we must realise:
1.
Suffering is the result of man’s wickedness. Murder, fighting, quarrel,
stealing, pride, cheating, are the cause of man’s sufferings. Drunkenness
killed an innocent man; not God.
2.
Man is created a free moral being with the freedom to choose to obey or disobey
God. If it was impossible to disobey God, then we’d never have to choose to
obey. We would be like robots and that wouldn’t bring glory to God.
3.
Evil is necessary for human growth and virtue. If there is no evil, then love,
courage, self-sacrifice, modesty, patience, forgiveness, are meaningless words.
Men are just machines.
Now,
if there is no pain, sorrow and suffering, what will happen if I accidently cut
off my finger while chopping some meat? I won’t feel anything, right? Expand
this argument and you will have people walking around without a hand or leg or
a knife in his chest and they are walking around not feeling it. It also means
that if I die, no one will cry or feel sad because sorrow is not supposed to
exist. You see, we don’t know what is good and happiness unless we can
experience hatred and pain. Instead, pain and suffering drive us to look beyond
ourselves. They remind us that our true dependency is on God.
And,
thanks be to God, such pain, sorrow and suffering are only temporary because He
has promised a place where such things don’t exist anymore (Revelations 21:4).
That place is called heaven. Yes, God cares and loves us.
He cares enough to send His Son, Jesus Christ, to suffer and die for us.
Because of God's great love and sacrifice we can go to a place where there will
be no more suffering.
Jimmy Lau
Psa
119:97 Oh how love I thy law! It is my meditation all the day.
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