The Answer To Why Bad Things Happen To Good People

This is not the article I was planning to write.  I would much prefer to dive right into the next one.  I’m pretty excited about the upcoming, highly controversial topic found there, but I also know that the very thought of Divine Persecution causes many Christians to fidget and squirm in their theological seats.

And since that is the case, it deserves a thorough introduction.  So buckle up and hold on tight.

An Event That Set The World On Fire

Once Stephen was murdered for his Christian faith in Acts chapter seven, life in the city of Jerusalem exploded into rampant chaos.  For the most part, the early church had been experiencing heavenly bliss up to that day.

Miraculous signs and wonders were being performed at the hands of the apostles, the fellowship among likeminded believers was sweet, the church was devoting themselves to the apostle’s teaching and the redeemed were experiencing favor among all the people.  Aside from sitting under the earthly ministry of Christ Himself, living in Jerusalem at that time must have been the closest thing to heaven on earth.  More eternally significant than anything else was the fact that the “Lord was adding to their number day by day those who were being saved” (Acts 2:47).

What a fantastic time in redemptive history it must have been!

No doubt the prolific and gruesome persecution the church experienced right after Stephen’s murder was a bit of a shocker.  The disciples must have assumed the Lord would just continue to bless them with love, joy, peace. and the salvation of many souls.

Apparently the Lord had other plans in mind.  But why?

Why would God do that?  Why did God allow His children to be brutally persecuted like they were, especially since He had been blessing their evangelistic zeal for nearly two full years up to that point?  Some people might prefer to ask that question in this way:

“Why do bad things happen to good people?”

Although I don’t presume that my answer solves the riddle in each and every circumstance known to man, the answer to such questions regarding the harsh persecution of Christians, frankly, may not be something you have ever considered.

The answer all boils down to God’s sovereign reaction to the early church’s spiritual complacency, ignorance, and lack of radical obedience to the clear commandments of His Son.

The Devil’s Beast Or The Lord’s Prodding Stick?

The devil can’t even sneeze without first obtaining God’s permission to do so.  Have you ever thought about that?

God is in sovereign control over every detail in this universe, especially the safety, well-being and prosperity of His redeemed people.  God “does not tempt anyone” to sin, but there are occasions in life when He allows us to be tested in order to reveal the substance of our faith. (c.f. James 1:13)

Just ask Job.

I can always remember how God described Job by remembering the following acronym: B.U.F.T.  We read in Job 1:8, “The LORD said to Satan, “Have you considered My servant Job?  For there is no one like him on earth, a blameless and upright man, fearing God and turning away from evil.””  Job was a B.U.F.T. man (Blameless, Upright, Fearing God, Turning away from evil).

Why God ever allowed the devil to harm a B.U.F.T. guy like Job, I suppose we will have to wait until we get to heaven to find out.

Have you ever found yourself in a place where God allowed you to be thoroughly and—from your vantage point—almost cruelly tested?  Rarely are we ever grateful during (or after) times like that.  I don’t know about you but too often I am more prone to accuse others and shake my fist toward the heavens before ever looking to my own sin as the reason for my suffering.

Have you ever experienced anything like that?  I am sure you probably have.

Ever wondered why God did not incarcerate the devil (and all the other demons for that matter) in chains like He did with the “angels who did not keep their own domain, but abandoned their proper abode, He has kept in eternal bonds under darkness for the judgment of the great day” (Jude 1:6)?  No doubt it would have made our lives a lot easier if He had.  But God had His reason for not doing so.

Remember when Jesus warned Peter, saying, “Simon, Simon, behold, Satan has demanded permission to sift you like wheat” (Luke 22:31)?  You see, everything is off limits to that sinful slanderer unless God allows it to be so.  Satan needs divine permission.  Satan needs God’s permission.

The devil is God’s devil.  The devil and his demonic army are formidable enemies of humanity—to be sure—but too often we ascribe more power to the devil than he has actually got.

Have you ever been guilty of doing that?  I know I have.

There was a time in my life when I used to be afraid of the devil.  Sometimes I would picture in my mind’s eye God and His heavenly host battling a celestial war against the devil and his demons somewhere in outer space.  The eternal struggle between Good and Evil, if you will.  But that was before I was saved and began studying the Scriptures, specifically meditating on key verses like those found in the twentieth chapter of Revelation.

The book of Revelation provides us with an unclouded glimpse at precisely who this disgraced angel is and the defined boundaries of his authority.

Have you ever read that incredible Bible passage where the devil gets picked up and thrown into the abyss before the thousand year millennial reign of Jesus Christ?  God and Satan must have been battling each other for a long time before the Lord finally got the upper hand in that scuffle, right?  Not hardly.

In fact, God is not even the one who throws Satan into the abyss.  It is one lone angel that accomplishes that feat.  Just one angel holding “the key of the abyss and a great chain in his hand” (Revelation 20:31).  That’s it.  One angel.  It will not even be much of a struggle, for we are then told, “And he laid hold of the dragon, the serpent of old, who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years; and he threw him into the abyss, and shut it and sealed it over him” (Revelation 20:2,3).

No, the devil is not all that powerful, really.  He is a demonic deceiver who has duped many people into crediting more to him than necessary.

So let us not be guilty of doing that any longer.

It is for reasons like this that Scripture exhorts us to, “Fear God, and give Him glory” (Revelation 14:7) but only to “Resist the devil and he will flee from you” (James 4:7).

We are to fear God and resist the devil.  That’s a big difference.

Satan is a coward and, with his tail tucked between his legs, runs away when we resist him by God’s grace.  Fearing God, on the other hand, is so much more than merely a reverential fear.  If God expected only to be revered by us then He would have said so.  After all, it is not reverence that makes one wise but “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom” (Proverbs 9:10)

I am highlighting some of these truths so that you will understand that God is actually the One in total control over all things.  There is no power struggle in the heavens, nor is there a tug-of-war going on within the Trinity, either.

God alone is the Divine Power pulling all the strings in this universe, and that includes even the strings we are not comfortable with.  If something seems off-color with regards to the severe persecution of Christian people, then we should look no further than God’s throne.  Never does God author sin and He “will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, so that you will be able to endure it” (1 Corinthians 10:13).  Yet the buck of responsibility always stops at the feet of the Almighty.

So don’t ever lose sight of who is sitting on the throne and, consequently, gets to decide what commandments we must obey.

God did not send His Son to die on a cross in order to save only a few thousand people in one Jewish city, then sit back on heaven’s throne waiting hundreds of years for billions of people die and perish in Hell forever.  Certainly not!

The apostle Peter warned his readers that, “it is time for judgment to begin with the household of God; and if it begins with us first, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God?” (1 Peter 4:17).  God’s plan for the redeemed—determined in eternity past—has always been for us to glorify Him while sharing the faith that is in us with those around us.

And yet, when a child chooses to remain defiant to a father’s will, the rod will not go unused.

Tertullian, the second century Christian author, is credited for having first said, “the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church.”

But I personally prefer what seventeenth century author James Milne had to say about persecution.  He said, “Persecution does in this life, what the last great day will do completely, separate the wheat from the tares.” It reminds me of how the persecution of true Christians will always suit God’s plan.  We may not prefer God’s usage of pain and suffering, but it certainly accomplishes the result He intends.

Pastor and author Charles Swindoll wrote, “A loving God using pain to produce good in His children may sound harsh, until you consider that the most loving thing He ever did was also the most painful—putting His only Son on the cross.”

Partial obedience to His revealed will is not what the Lord had intended for His people, neither in biblical times nor in today’s American church.  As we will see in more detail in my upcoming posts, the Lord Himself unleashed religious persecution against the church in Jerusalem in order that the redeemed might be scattered into “Judea and Samaria” with the gospel.  It was only after the church forsook the comfortable confines of Jerusalem’s walls—in exchange for being wholly obedient to Christ’s command—that God then holstered the prodding stick of religious persecution.

Understanding—and heeding—this warning applies to every believer today as well.  It would be unwise to tempt the Lord any further in this regard.

Yet before we dive into the terribly fascinating topic of religious persecution found in the book of Acts, it may be helpful to first take a stroll down memory lane to an incident earlier in Israel’s history, found in 1 Samuel 15 (which we’ll do in the next post or two).  This sobering reminder will set the stage for the substance of Divine Persecution.  It just may be the reason why God allows bad things to happen to good (His) people.

I want us to consider the severe consequences to King Saul’s lack of being wholly obedient to the mission God gave him.  After all, God expects His people to be much more than merely 99% obedient to His commands, right?

Ultimately, we need to understand what King Saul had to learn the hard way.  We need to understand that there are permanent and potentially life-altering consequences for stopping short of hacking Agag to pieces.

QUESTION:  What do you think about the question, “Why do bad things happen to good people?”  Or, “Why do terrible things happen to God’s people?”

* Photo credit: gogoloopie (Creative Commons)