GOD IS GOOD

“A tree is identified by its fruit. If a tree is good, its fruit will be good. If a tree is bad, its fruit will be bad. You brood of snakes! How could evil men like you speak what is good and right? For whatever is in your heart determines what you say. A good person produces good things from the treasury of a good heart, and an evil person produces evil things from the treasury of an evil heart. And I tell you this, you must give an account on judgment day for every idle word you speak. The words you say will either acquit you or condemn you.” [Matthew 12.33-37]

Are we speaking idle words?

Are we saying things about God that are not true?

Do we say that bad things come from God Who is Good?

Do we dare even say that bag things are allowed by our Good God?

Like Jesus said here, a tree is identified by its fruit. Bad fruit comes from bad trees! It does not come from God and God does not ordain or endorse it! Case in point? Jesus. He healed the sick and raised the dead. His fruit was preaching the Kingdom of God, healing the sick, and raising the dead - all consistent with the good blessings for obedience found in the Deuteronomy 28. 

The "hard sayings" of the Bible need to be understood in the light of what is clearly known about God. We know God is good. And, we know what good is, because Deuteronomy 28 defines what is good (the results for obedience in our case) and what is bad (the results for disobedience in our case). We have all the information we need about God to understand that He is good.

God would not even allow a priest with a damaged testicle (completely unseen) to enter the Temple. What makes us believe then that God (by Himself, Jesus, or by His Spirit) would use a bad thing (damaged testicle or otherwise) to do His work and His will? It is pure foolishness at best and, at worst, blasphemy as Jesus described in His discussion prior to the account above in Matthew 12. Jesus was very clear that the "good things" He did could not be the work of Satan.

Are there difficult passages of scripture to understand? Yes! But we must fix our estimation of God based on the truth of the Bible before making conclusions about God based on a few "difficult" passages!

Where is the fear of God in a person who says God uses bad things to accomplish good?

Father, help us to have a Biblical view of Who You Are instead of a doctrinal or theological view of Who You Are!