Our Redemptive God |
by David A. DePra |
|
Surely, the wrath of
man shall praise thee. The |
remainder of wrath
shalt thou restrain. Psalm 76:10 |
|
This
passage is proof positive that God allows nothing He |
does not intend to use. If He
doesn't intend to use it, He shall |
restrain it. |
This
tells us a few things about the character of our God. |
Primarily, it reveals God as
eternally redemptive. In other words, |
God doesn't waste a thing.
God will use even the evil which |
He allows in a redemptive
way. |
Of
course, this is quite beyond our understanding. One |
of the most common
accusations people bring against God |
has to do with why God allows
evil in the world. They ask, |
"If God is so good, then
why does He allow evil?" Then they |
add, "I can't believe in
a God who would allow so much |
suffering." |
The
Bible answers these questions for anyone with an open |
heart. But if a person is
living for this life alone, he will not |
accept, let alone understand,
the answer. He will interpret it |
on purely temporal,
self-centered lines. |
God
allows evil in this world for reasons which reach |
beyond this age. He is
proving something to all of us which |
will resound through
eternity: We cannot live without Him. All |
we can produce is chaos and
evil. The evil God allows now |
is teaching all of us about
our great need for Jesus Christ. |
There are, of course, more specific reasons why God |
allows evil to come upon
people. But again, you must have a |
vision which extends beyond
the here and now to accept |
this. If you are don't have
that vision, you will never grasp |
the Truth. |
The
death of a child, spouse, or other loved one, are good |
examples. Who can explain why
God would allow the child |
of one of His people to be
killed? What purpose could that |
possibly serve? Not much of a
purpose from our present |
perspective. But we need to
at least realize that there is |
more to reality then our
perspective. There is more to God |
than my grasp of Him. And
despite the fact that tragedy is |
real, we will see it
differently some day. For those who will |
believe, there will come a
day when we will fully agree that |
God DID do all things well.
We may not be able to see that |
now or understand it. But we
can believe and hold to it by faith. |
God
WILL have His way. He WILL make the wrath of |
man to praise Him. He WILL
take everything which man can |
throw at Him and turn it into
something redemptive which will |
turn people and keep them in
Christ. The remainder He will |
not allow. |
It
is so easy to get mad at God for the evil He does allow. |
But what about the evil He
doesn't allow -- I mean the evil which |
we never even knew could have
happened? How many times |
God may have prevented
tragedy and we never knew |
it! |
God
has not, in this age, worried about explaining Himself |
to us about everything.
Neither has He sought to vindicate |
Himself. But when all is said
and done everything will make |
sense. And it will cause us
to fall down and worship Him. |