Today’s Scripture Reading [January 8, 2012]
For we are labourers together with God: ye are God's husbandry, ye are God's building. According to the grace of God which is given unto me, as a wise masterbuilder, I have laid the foundation, and another buildeth thereon. But let every man take heed how he buildeth thereupon. For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ. [1 Corinthians 3:9-11. KJV]
Many of us, even non-Christians, know about the stories of the fall of man in the garden of Eden. Because Adam and Eve disobeyed God and ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil that God has forbidden them to eat, they were casted out from the garden and that was when sin first entered into mankind. When Adam realized the graved mistake he made and when God called out him and asked him why he ate the fruit that he was commanded not to eat, Adam replied was simple but evasive: The woman whom thou gavest to with me, she gave of the tree, and I did eat (Genesis 3:12). God then turned to Eve whom God had given to Adam as his wife and asked the same question: What is this that thou has done? (Genesis 3:12). Eve’s answer, too, was simple and evasive: The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat (Genesis 3:13). In short, they were pointing figures at each other – Adam pointed at Eve and Eve pointed at the serpent, and in no lesser words, they were telling God: Is all your fault!
Sound familiar? Must be! Whether it’s earthquake, tsunami, volcanic eruptions, flood, hurricane, or even man-made disasters such as the mass killing of 6 million Jews, the Japanese atrocities in the World War II, people would simply pointed fingers at God and said: That’s your fault! It has been estimated by historians that in the last 4,000 years there have been less than 300 without a major war. Someone wryly called peace ‘merely a time when everybody stops to reload’. Whether calamities due to nature's wrath or man-made, many people were quick to point fingers at God even though we know from history that the human suffering is so frequent so much so prompted someone to have rightly commented that ‘the history of the human race is nothing less than the history of suffering.’
At first glance it seems that it is difficult to reconcile that God exists when we are seeing so many catastrophes, accidents, diseases, evil, pain, suffering and death that are happenings every day in this world around us. This has led many think it is logical to conclude that God is non-existent. The Tsunami in December 2004 was dubbed as “the wave that shook the world” when some of Asia’s islands shifted their positions by several metres has caused more than 280,000 died (although the actual number can never be known and is likely to be much higher than officially reported). With several communities were simply swallowed up, it was the greatest human suffering in recent history of mankind. It prompted a British newspaper editorial to admit: Our brains are not designed to compute suffering on such a scale - the swallowing up of whole communities is literally unimaginable.” For many people the case against God seems pretty watertight — but is it?
The subject on human suffering is dealt with a lot in the Bible and also by many well-known Christian writers who have provided great insight into the ‘whys’ of human suffering from Bible perspective. The following is a short except of a message I read and would like to share with the readers here:
“At no point does it (the Bible) offer glib or simplistic answers to solve all problems, end all pain and tie up all the loose ends. Instead, it says that with regard to the deepest matters of all, ‘we see but a poor reflection’ (1 Corinthians 13:12) in this life. Sceptics may see this as dodging the issue, but this argument is easily countered. Firstly, the very existence of a truly transcendent God is a mystery. If we could understand all there is to know about God he would no longer be God. Secondly, there is no logical basis for assuming that God owes us an explanation for anything that happens in the world. Can we seriously claim the right to know? Thirdly, to say that the Bible does not tell us everything is not to say that it tells us nothing. Being left with doubts is not the same as being left in the dark. How could we know all the answers unless we had total knowledge of everything? To say that unless we see the whole picture there is no picture is arrogance masquerading as intelligence. Even the strongest believer admits there are things in life that leave us with questions, not answers. Anyone denying this and trying to find a simplistic solution to all the questions raised by evil and suffering is on a fool’s errand. Fourthly, God says, ‘My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts’ (Isaiah 55:8); then how could we possibly understand everything God could tell us? There is a world of difference between the way we think and the way God thinks! Anybody who disagrees with this is suffering not merely from delusions of grandeur, but from madness. Fifthly, while the Bible does not tell us all we want to know, it does tell us all we need to know, and on the issue of evil and suffering it takes us back far beyond all the instances of these things that we have discussed to tell us how it all began — and where it is all leading.”
Indeed, the road ahead is not pretty! Since the fall of man, mankind has been living in Dark Ages, and the Dark Ages that we are living today is “not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in heavenly places (Ephesians 6:12). Our daily news that we read in the newspaper or watch over the TV, Internet have pointed us to one certainty “Our darkest day is yet to come!” We have indeed been warned 2,000 years ago by Apostle Paul when he wrote: “This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away. For of this sort are they which creep into houses, and lead captive silly women laden with sins, led away with divers lusts, Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. 2 Timothy 3:1-7)” As instructed by Jesus, we must therefore “be watchful and pray always that we may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and that we can to stand before the Son of Man (Luke 21:36).”
Thankfully, unlike the last two years which saw a very powerful earthquake rocked Haiti in January 2010 and severe flood in Brisbane, Australia in January 2011, the year 2012 has given us a good start so far. But as has been warned by Jesus in Luke 21:36, we need to be watchful and pray, and while we cannot control many events, we can always put our trust in Him that only Jesus and Jesus alone can help us to escape ‘all these things’. We are to be active in our steadfast search in our goal to please Jesus such as avoiding temptations, our constant striving to stay ahead of the warnings that the dark days are to come in many unexpected manners, and to take deliberate effort to strive against all evil obstacles. Jesus wants nothing more than just our unbroken relationship with Him. Nothing else matter. Let the Spirit of Christ be our foundation! Let Him be our Builder!
. if i gave you a hundred years to come up with a way to control the minds of millions of people, you`d probably come up with your cult .
