God’s Sovereignty - Part 3
Why does God let bad things happen?
People who fall into the error of commanding God or questioning God’s wisdom are people who don’t understand the sovereignty of God. They become obsessed with the problem of evil. They ask, if God is ruler of the universe, then why do bad things happen?
I submit to you that bad things happen because God allows it. God is omnipotent and omniscient and victorious and besides being omnipotent and omniscient and victorious, we know from the Bible that God is also good. We need to trust that Father knows best.
In Luke 18:18-19, we read that a ruler asked Jesus, "Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?" 19 And Jesus said to him, "Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone.” By the way, I’d just like to say here that in John 10:14, Jesus said, “I am the Good Shepherd.” No one except God is good. Jesus is good, therefore Jesus is also God.
When we ask why bad things happen, what we are really asking is why things we don’t understand are happening. We are asking why things that the world would consider to be tragedies are happening. Why things that appear to be calamities are happening.
Beloved, we serve a God Who not only made us, but Who is also omniscient and omnipotent, which is to say He is all-knowing and all-powerful. More than that, He is just and righteous and loving and good. And He is wise. In the King James version, Romans 16:27 says, “To God only wise, be glory through Jesus Christ for ever. Amen.” Another translation [GOD’S WORD] puts it this way: “God alone is wise. Glory belongs to him through Jesus Christ forever! Amen.”
We are treading on dangerous ground when we start to question why God does anything. It is not our place to decide whether God should or shouldn’t allow something to happen.
In Isaiah 45:9 ESV God says, “Woe to him who strives with him who formed him, a pot among earthen pots! Does the clay say to him who forms it, ‘What are you making?’ or ‘Your work has no handles’?”
This theme is actually a repeat of Isaiah 29:16 NIV, where God says, “You turn things upside down, as if the potter were thought to be like the clay! Shall what is formed say to the one who formed it, ‘You did not make me’? Can the pot say to the potter, ‘You know nothing’?”
Instead of trying to second-guess God, we would do much better to be like Habakkuk or like Job, who set their hearts to bless the name of the Lord no matter what:
Here’s what Habakkuk said in Habakkuk 3 beginning in verse 17:
17 Though the fig tree should not blossom,
nor fruit be on the vines,
the produce of the olive fail
and the fields yield no food,
the flock be cut off from the fold
and there be no herd in the stalls,
18 yet I will rejoice in the LORD;
I will take joy in the God of my salvation.
19 GOD, the Lord, is my strength;
he makes my feet like the deer’s;
he makes me tread on my high places.
And here’s what Job said in Job 1:21 NIV, immediately after he lost all his flocks, all his servants, and all his children. He said, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return. The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.”
I am extremely impressed by Job’s behavior—and so is God. (See Ezekiel 14:14, where God lists Noah, Daniel, and Job as examples of righteous men.
Margot Armer
