How can a God of love allow all this evil and suffering to exist? My wife’s question is when my parents were physically abusing me I prayed for help and God did nothing, Why?
To answer the first question we need to divide the question into two parts. We need to understand how spiritual dominions operate and also answer the question why are we here? To do this we need to go back to the beginning when God first made Adam and put him in the garden of Eden with his wife Eve.
At that time God gave the dominion of the earth to Adam and Eve. We can see this in Genesis 1:28, Then God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.
Clearly at this time we can see that man has dominion of the earth and all its living creatures. God has also told Adam and Eve not to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. We can read this law in Genesis 2:17, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”
Genesis 3:4-6,Then the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate.
The spiritual law concerning dominion says that if you disobey God and follow the instructions of another entity you become subservient the other entity. We can see this law explained in Romans 6:16, Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are that one’s slaves whom you obey, whether of sin leading to death, or of obedience leading to righteousness?
In the garden of Eden I am sure Satan didn’t bother to mention to Eve that if she ate the fruit she would be turning the dominion of the earth over to Satan. But that’s exactly what has happened. Before Jesus came on the scene Satan ruled the earth including man and all the animals. Jesus called Satan “the ruler of this world”. We can see this in John 12:31, Now is the judgment of this world; now the ruler of this world will be cast out.
When Satan offered the kingdoms of the earth to Jesus, if Jesus would fall down and worship Satan, Jesus didn’t argue with Satan concerning the ownership of the earth. We see this in
Matthew 4:8-9, Again, the devil took Him up on an exceedingly high mountain, and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to Him, “All these things I will give You if You will fall down and worship me.”
Notice that Satan was trying to get Jesus to follow Satan’s will just like Satan did to Eve when Eve ate of the fruit. Satan was trying to keep the dominion of the earth by trying to get Jesus to be subservient to Satan’s will.
When Satan entered Judas and Judas then turned Jesus over to the religious leaders to be crucified Satan didn’t realize at the time that Jesus being an innocent sinless man was about to take the dominion of the earth back to Himself. We can see this in John 14:30, I will no longer talk much with you, for the ruler of this world is coming, and he has nothing in Me.
I believe after Jesus died on the cross He went down into hell to preach to the captives as the Bible states but I also believe Jesus went down there to let the demons know that they no longer have dominion over the earth and over the people of the earth without the people’s permission.
The only way the evil forces can have dominion over any human being today is only with the permission of the human being either directly inviting Satan or his demons into your life or what human beings don’t realize is permission can also be given to any evil force by the law of dominion. Here’s how it works, if you are doing anything contrary to the laws of God or man you are giving permission to the evil forces. This includes hate, envy, murder, lying, stealing, cheating, excessive drinking or drug taking, spirit boards, anything illegal or anything hurtful to God or man.
When we deliberately chose to do evil or are doing evil without even realizing it we are giving Satan and his demonic forces permission to manipulate the circumstances in our lives. When this happens nothing good will come out of this.
Currently mankind is in between a dominion change. Satan no longer has dominion over mankind except the dominion that Satan fools mankind into believing he has. Jesus because of the cross now has dominion over the earth and all of its contents. Mankind is currently waiting for the return of Jesus to claim His possession of the earth which Jesus is due to arrive anytime. We can see this in Romans 6:14 For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace.
When the earth changes possession there will be a big change in the way things currently are. We can see this in Revelation 21:4, “And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.” As you can clearly see God is not currently the king of the earth yet.
When people asked how God could allow evil to happen we know that when God takes back dominion of the earth evil will then be swiftly dealt with.
The next part of the question is what is man’s purpose here on the earth? Why are we here? The Bible clearly says from the beginning of the book that mankind is here on the earth to learn the lessons of good and evil. Adam and Eve chose from the beginning of time to learn these lessons when they chose to eat the forbidden fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil and after all these thousands of years Adam and Eve’s offspring are still stumbling over these same lessons of good and evil.
I know it sounds redundant but man cannot learn the lessons of good unless good exists on the planet and at the same time man cannot learn the lessons of evil unless evil exists on the planet. Lets take another look at the questions.
Why does God allow evil and suffering to exist on this planet? ANSWER, Because that’s the direction mankind chose to take for himself in the quest for trying to become like God. Look again at the line Satan gave Eve to get her to eat the fruit. We read this in Genesis 3:5, For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
To answer my wife’s question about why God didn’t answer her prayer to help her with her abusive parents. ANSWER, Evil exists as part of the lessons we are here to learn. Sometimes when God answers prayers we are looking the other way and don’t even recognize when God is working. I am not trying to belittle the trauma my wife went through. What I am saying is when my wife was seventeen she signed up to be a foreign exchange student. At seventeen my wife was going to high school in Boston and then to Boston college. She never went back to Japan except for short visits to her parents home in Tokyo. That to me is God answering prayer. To my wife it wasn’t answered soon enough.
In this life I have noticed that it is very hard to see ourselves as others see us. When we, during our everyday routine go through the day grouchy, complaining, hateful to others or just having a bad attitude we are inviting bad spirits to invade our thoughts and influence our decisions and in the process making the people around us miserable.
My late mother used to always say “the more I complain the worse it gets.” She never figured out that the two are related. When she would complain the complaining would put her mind in a negative mind-set which would make her day (and ours) progressively worse. In that kind of negative mind-set her mind could not see the good, she would only focus her mind on the bad. She wasn’t aware that she was the problem. She was giving the evil forces indirect permission to invade her thought processes.
Jesus said never repay evil with evil but that we should overcome evil with good. The Bible says with good reason that we should count our blessings. Counting our blessing every morning will help keep our mind in a positive mood through out the day. Starting each day with a heartfelt talk with God will also keep your thoughts in a positive mind-set.
In conclusion, because we are born here on Satan’s planet we therefore belong to Satan. If we don’t do anything about accepting Jesus Christ’s plan for salvation, Satan already getting what he wants will for the most part leave us alone during our lifetime. Satan knows that when we die we already belong to him if we have rejected God’s plan of salvation for us.
However if we are contemplating Christ’s offer of salvation it is then that Satan will attack us. Once we accept Christ it is at that time Christ will open our spiritual eyes and put up His hedge around us to protect us from the attacks of the Devil. We can see this in 2 Corinthians 3:14-16,
“But their minds were blinded. For until this day the same veil remains unlifted in the reading of the Old Testament, because the veil is taken away in Christ. But even to this day, when Moses is read, a veil lies on their heart. Nevertheless when one turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away.” We also see this in 2 Corinthians 4:3, “But even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing.”
To keep from falling prey to Satan and his devices it would be wise to be knowledgable of the ways Satan and his demons operate in our lives and also to draw close to God through prayer and the reading of the Bible everyday.