WHY DO BAD THINGS HAPPEN?

PHILOSOPHERS would argue that GOD cannot exist because evil exists in the world...the fundamental (fun & mental) question becoming: "How could a benevolent, all knowing, all powerful God allow BAD THINGS to happen?"

This is a completely valid question and one for which the Bible has the answer! Let's examine the facts, shall we?

Genesis tells us that when God had completed his creative work, he examined everything and said it was all GOOD! So what happened?

1. 
   
   Rather than worshipful robots, God created his creatures with a free will. The angels have free will and some chose to rebel, Lucifer being apparently chief instigator in that rebellion.


2. 
   
   Lucifer/Satan then tempted mankind in the garden of Eden with disobedience to God's clear commandment not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil...mankind disobeyed God and became sinners like Satan.


3. 
   
   Romans 5 informs us that this initial rebellion affected all of Adam & Eve's descendants coming into the world...so that all became sinners and sin's death penalty passed unto all mankind.


4. 
   
   Not only that, but the entire world is now under a curse because of our initial and continued rebellion to our Creator!


5. 
   
   Man still has a free will and a natural tendency toward sin...so of course BAD THINGS are going to happen! Man chooses to make bad things happen! There are consequences for our daily rebellion in which we inflict ourselves upon other's lives with consequences.

The whole creation is groaning (Rom 8) and travailing just waiting for God's plan to come all the way around where sin will be judged and put down forever, where Righteousness will prevail and the Redeemed will live forever in a NEW HEAVEN and NEW EARTH. Folks God's plan isn't to renovate what we all polluted with sin. His goal in creation is to do a short work upon the Earth and cut it short in Righteousness (Rom 9)! God made everything good knowing that his creatures would pollute it, that he would have to redeem it, that he would have to come down from heaven in the form of humanity and pay for our sins to do it, and that ultimately he would re-create the heavens and the Earth for the redeemed to inhabit a creation that is ALL GOOD! No wonder the bible proclaims (Rom 8) that "all things work together for good to them that love God, to them called according to His purpose!"