This is the most frequently asked question
concerning God. If God is loving, why do evil people
flourish and innocent people perish? Why does God
not step in to help, deliver, and save? Millions of
people died in World War II. Many innocent people
are still dying all around the world today in war
and in peace. Babies are born impaired. Children
become crippled. Adults become paralyzed. Old people
become invalids. There is senseless killing, lying,
cheating, stealing, and robbing between and within
nations and ethnic groups, in "bad neighborhoods"
and "good neighborhoods," and in families. Who are
the victims? Mostly the innocent - the children, the
aged, and the nice people. Where is God? Is He not a
loving God? Did He not create man? Why does He not
help? Why does He let it happen? Isn't He in
control? We need to go back to the beginning to see
why things are the way they are and if there is a
solution to this problem that all humanity faces.
The Battle of Two
Kingdoms
The Bible tells us that before man was created,
Lucifer, the archangel who was the ruler over the
earth, had rebelled against God and become God's
enemy, Satan. The earth had become the kingdom of
Satan. Then there was a struggle between the two
kingdoms - God's and Satan's.
Man is to Express God
and Rule for God
Man was made by God in His image to express God and
rule for God. To express God is to love as God
loves, be righteous as God is righteous, and so on.
God has many divine attributes, and man was created
with the corresponding human virtues. Man is
supposed to live a life that expresses God's divine
attributes through his human virtues. To rule for
God is to be God's deputy authority, king of the
earth, to overthrow and replace Satan and to bring
in God's kingdom of love and righteousness.
Man was created perfectly. He would not get
sick or die. God provided everything that man would
need to live, to express God, and to rule for God.
For man's physical existence, God gave man air,
water, food, and sunshine. To make the environment
pleasant for man, God made trees, flowers, and
grass. To make the earth a lively place, God made
the animals. For man to fulfill his function -
expressing God and ruling for God - God made a
spirit within man and set man before the tree of
life. The tree of life signifies God becoming life
to man. If man would take God into his spirit by
eating the tree of life, man would have God as life
and be able to express God and to rule for God.
The Greatest Tragedy
of the Universe
Although God's intention would have been fulfilled
if man ate from the tree of life, God still allowed
man to choose between Him and Satan - signified by
the tree of knowledge. Satan came in disguise, in
trickery, and deceived man by making the tree of
knowledge seem very pleasant. Man chose the tree of
knowledge. Instead of God's life, man received the
satanic life into himself, resulting in sin, evil,
and death. The satanic life has been growing in man
for the last six thousand years.
Because man took in Satan's life, man is
under the control of the satanic nature inwardly as
well as the authority of Satan outwardly. The Bible
calls Satan "the god of this age." Man is blinded by
him. Man is lying in the hand of this evil one and
is unconscious of what the evil one is doing to and
in him. Satan's desire is to ruin and kill man. The
real and living God created man, but the god of this
age got into man. The universal tragedy is that the
very man who was to be king living in God's kingdom
has become a slave dying in Satan's kingdom. Satan
is destroying the man God created, so that the
condition today is not God's original intention.
God's Way of Saving
Man from Suffering
God loved man and still wanted to save man from
suffering back to Himself. However, even He had to
acknowledge the authority which had been set up. It
would have been unrighteous for God to remove this
deputy authority without the proper procedure. Also,
without the preparation of a proper replacement,
there would be a big chaos. With this in view, He
took some definite steps to bring about the defeat
of Satan and to bring in His own kingdom. First, He
came to earth as a man named Jesus Christ 2000 years
ago. He as a man set up a pattern for us, showing us
how man may love one another and be righteous by
God's life. Although He acknowledged the authority
of Satan over the earth and was subject to his
ruling outwardly, He did not succumb to Satan's
temptations. He was the one-man kingdom of God.
Satan had nothing in Him. Jesus did not have the
satanic nature; therefore He was inwardly free from
the tyranny of Satan. Yet He did not as a single man
take back the earth. This job requires many of us to
join Him.
For this He died to pay a ransom for all
mankind in order to redeem them from God's righteous
judgment of sin and resurrected to be man's life.
Now the way has been reopened for man to take God in
as life and express and rule for God, to become just
like Him and together to defeat His enemy and bring
in His kingdom.
All this happened 2000 years ago, yet most people
have not heard about or received this good news. The
world is still in chaos because so many are under
Satan's deception and control to resist God and live
by the sinful nature.
The Way to Stop All
Suffering
If you want to get out of this chaos, and
save the world from Satan's kingdom, you need to
save yourself first by receiving God into you
through calling on His name. Then He will start the
process of salvation inside of you. At the same
time, you need to spread the good news abroad to
your acquaintances. When enough people on earth are
filled up with the God of love and righteousness,
the kingdom of God will be brought in. People will
be living in peace, loving one another. There will
be no more robbing nor senseless killing. All forms
of evil will be removed from the earth. Would you
like to see this in your lifetime? What should you
do?
You may turn from Satan's kingdom of
darkness to God's kingdom of light, from Satan's
authority of death to God's authority of life. Say
to God, "Lord Jesus, come into me. Deliver me from
Satan's kingdom into Your kingdom. Forgive me of all
that I did under the tyranny of Satan. Save me now."
You will become a part of what God is doing in man
to end all the suffering in the world and to bring
His kingdom to the earth.
Bible
Verses for Your Reading
Luke 4:6 And the devil said to Him, To
You I will give all this authority and their glory,
because to me it has been delivered.
Isaiah 14:12-15 O Lucifer...! ...For thou hast said
in thine heart ...I will be like the most High. Yet
thou shalt be brought down to hell.
Colossians 1:13 Who delivered us out of the
authority of darkness and transferred us into the
kingdom of the Son of His love.
Genesis 1:26 And God said, Let us make man in our
image, ...let them have dominion.
Matthew 5:48 You therefore shall be perfect as your
heavenly Father is perfect.
Matthew 22:39 Love your neighbor as yourself.
2 Corinthians 5:21 That we might become the
righteousness of God in Him.
Genesis 2:9 Out of the ground made the LORD God to
grow every tree...; the tree of life..., and the
tree of knowledge of good and evil.
Zechariah 12:1 The LORD... forms the spirit of man
within him.
Genesis 3:1 Now the serpent was more subtle.... And
he said unto the woman.
2 Corinthians 11:3 The serpent deceived Eve.
Romans 5:12 Therefore just as through one man sin
entered into the world, and through sin, death.
Ephesians 4:17-19 The Gentiles also walk in the
vanity of their mind, ...alienated from the life of
God..., because of the hardness of their heart;
Who... have given themselves over to lasciviousness
to work all uncleanness in greediness.
Romans 7:23 But I see a different law in my members,
...making me a captive to the law of sin.
2 Corinthians 4:4 In whom the god of this age has
blinded the thoughts of the unbelievers that the
illumination of the gospel of the glory of Christ,
who is the image of God, might not shine on them.
1 John 5:19 We know that we are of God, and the
whole world lies in the evil one.
Hebrews 2:14-15 Through death He might destroy him
who has the might of death, that is, the devil, and
might release those... held in slavery.
Romans 5:8 But God commends His own love to us in
that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
John 1:1, 14 In the beginning was the Word..., and
the Word was God. And the Word became flesh.
Matthew 1:21 You shall call His name Jesus, for it
is He who will save His people from their sins.
John 6:57 I live because of the Father.
1 John 4:7 Love is of God, and everyone who loves
has been begotten of God and knows God.
Matthew 4:9-10 And he said to Him, All these will I
give You if You will fall down and worship me. Then
Jesus said to him, Go away, Satan!
John 14:30 The ruler of the world is coming, and in
Me he has nothing.
1 Peter 3:18 For Christ also has suffered once for
sins, the Righteous on behalf of the unrighteous,
that He might bring you to God.
1 Peter 1:3 God... has regenerated us unto a living
hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
1 Corinthians 15:45 The last Adam became a
life-giving Spirit.
Hebrews 10:20 Which entrance He initiated for us as
a new and living way through the veil.
1 John 5:11 God gave to us eternal life... in His
Son.
Galatians 2:20 It is Christ who lives in me.
Revelation 20:6 They will be priests of God and of
Christ and will reign with Him for a thousand years.
Revelation 11:15 The kingdom of the world has become
the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ
Acts 2:40 Be saved from this crooked generation.
Acts 2:21 And it shall be that everyone who calls on
the name of the Lord shall be saved.
Mark 5:19 Go... to your own people, and report to
them... how He has had mercy on you.
2 Peter 3:13 We are expecting new heavens and a new
earth, in which righteousness dwells.
Revelation 21:3-4 God Himself will be with them and
be their God. ...Death will be no more, nor will
there be sorrow or crying or pain anymore.
Acts 26:18 To turn them from darkness to light and
from the authority of Satan to God, that they may
receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance.