“Why has Israel become a slave? Why has he been carried away as plunder? Strong lions have roared against him, and the land has been destroyed. The towns are now in ruins, and no one lives in them anymore. Egyptians, marching from their cities of Memphis and Tahpanhes, have destroyed Israel’s glory and power. And you have brought this upon yourselves by rebelling against the LORD your God, even though he was leading you on the way! [Jeremiah 2.14-17]
Yeah, well, let's not talk about that... Do we really want to go there? Why be so judgemental?
The unique thing about the prophets of old is that they simply called evil, evil. They declared, when bad things happened, that people were responsible because of their sin. And, they were right.
We have way too many 'spiritual' leaders today who, instead of calling evil, evil, ignore it and instead suggest we are good (regardless of our Godless ways). They surmise that the cursed things we experience must be God lovingly teaching us about His own killing, thieving, destructive side (in order to 'grow us' to be closer to Him) instead of His painful warning for us to repent.
No, we need prophets today - genuine spiritual leaders - who will call sin, sin! Bad things are curses and curses are bad things! It does not require a genius to figure that out! If we, as God's people, cannot say "we are blessed" in every situation, we need to figure out why! I say this because "blessing " is one of the things that belongs to God. Curses, on the other hand, were designed for and belong to Satan.
How did we ever digress to the twisted idea that God would randomly inflict curses upon us (anything that is not a blessing) as some kind of proof that He is a good and loving Father? Will we argue "Job" in spite of the glaring rebuke he received from God for his arrogance and pride?
To say that bad things happen to good people is to completely ignore human error and sin in the ordeal. Bad things are the equivalent of the pain incurred in touching a hot stove - it serves to remind us not to touch the hot stove (that we had already been loving told not to touch!!!)! How silly is it to think if I touch a hot stove that that is God's way of loving me? No, I was stupid in ignoring the loving warnings and put my hand where it shouldn't have been anyway and got burned as the result. If I am smart, I will remove my hand and never touch that stove again! But is it the loving will of God that I got burned? NO! A thousand times, NO! It was His will that I not touch the stove! The pain was MY OWN rebellious fault!
So... the perfect Sunday School teacher gets cancer and suffers a horrible death... Here is where we are faced with reality. Do we declare that Sunday School teacher's innocence or guilt? How can we know what is in that SS teacher's heart really? But that is what we do when we declare them innocent and instead make a judgement about God's character to say He caused the cursed cancer! If ever we are faced with the question whether it was God or man who caused something bad to happen, we better humbly admit that humanity is wrong and not God! That is exactly what Job did - whether he believed it or not, he humbled himself before God and admitted he had said things about which he knew nothing! (And no, Job did not die of cancer - he was restored to greater blessing than he had before the ordeal - so we really need to think twice before using Job as an example of bad things happening to good people - unless, of course, those good people come out better off than they started.)
And, for the record, no, I do not understand all there is to know about this subject, but Jeremiah said the bad things that happened to God's people was because of their own rebellion corporately. I am simply suggesting we need to think along those same lines and develop some doctrine of suffering.
Father, I am sorry we have made You out to be some random inflicter of curses. I do not understand all that goes wrong on this earth, but I know my duty is not to necessarily understand, but to stay in obedience to You. I know I am to accept my responsibility as an individual and as a human. I know that all the terrible things happening around me (and even to me) are indicators to repent and turn back to You. I know that Jesus is my Redeemer - but even He will not overrule my faithless and willful disobedience. Teach us, remind us, that right is never wrong and wrong is never right. As a society we have called that which is good evil and we have called that which is evil good. Oh God, forgive us - I cry out to You for mercy, and I do so in Jesus' name!
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