The question was put to me this evening..
‘I try to respect everyone’s beliefs unless it leads to mass murder and ethnic cleansing, or infringes on my own rights. But please explain to me: if god so loved his children, why are human beings being allowed to suffer unspeakable horrors?’ ‘G’
My answer is partial. I don’t pretend to know the whole of God’s thoughts, outside of what He has shared with me from the Scriptures - So this is how I understand it:
THE PARALLEL UNIVERSE 19 mins ago·
Your question ‘G’, is not only valid, it has been asked time and again for thousands of years. Even the prophets lamented.. 'How LONG GOD.. HOW LONG!?'..
‘How long, O LORD, must I call for help but You do not hear, or cry out to You, “Violence!” but You do not save?’
‘Why do You make me see iniquity? Why do You tolerate wrongdoing? Destruction and violence are before me. Strife is ongoing, and conflict abounds’.
‘Therefore the law is paralyzed, and justice never goes forth. For the wicked hem in the righteous, so that justice is perverted.’
Habakkuk 1:2-5
The answer to the question may be palatable, perhaps, only for those who believe in the resurrection. Let me briefly explain:
God is just. He limits Himself to interference in the affairs of me 'WHEN THEY ASK'. If no one calls out to Him for help, they may become the victims of evil men. Evil men are NOT STOPPED - because they must accomplish their deeds, so that when they are judged they will have no excuse. Otherwise they might be able to say -"OH NO Lord! I would NEVER have done that'. But they did do it. God knows it, they know it, and they will have no answer when they are put to suffer eternal consequences.
OK.. logically it follows..
But what about all the poor victims who never got their chance to live.. to choose to know and and love God. Who were killed as babies.. aborted, genocided.. etc? What about them?
THE MILLENNIUM REST
The answer to this question answers the question - ‘WHY is there to be a 1000 year period, before the new heaven and the new earth? There has to be. Because a Just God will allow EVERYONE to get the chance to choose to love and obey Him, or not.
The Bible teaches about a period of 1000 years where all such snuffed out lives will be restored.. satan will be chained and out of the picture; There will be no more murders, or babies dead before their time - no lovers of war,..
‘Scatter Thou, the people that delight in war’. Psalm 68:30
All men will live in peace, and have the chance, they missed in this world, to choose to love God, or to reject Him. Amazingly, some will STILL reject God. This is why at the end of the 1000 years, there will be one final rebellion - with a final war between God and satan.
And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. 2 And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years,
3 And cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled: and after that he must be loosed a little season.
4 And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years.
Read verse 4 carefully - The Bible speaks of a new life for 1000 years for those who:
Were killed for the witness of Jesus Christ - as millions have been.
Did not worship the beast, or receive his mark.
Where the first category is talking about ‘Christians’, the next category might be anyone who did not worship satan. A person who would do so, has already ‘had his chance to choose’, and are not included in the 1000 year’s of resurrected life. A baby obviously never had a chance to choose - as well as many others of all ages; These will be alive again in the 1000 years millennium rest.
After the final rebellion and destruction of the adversary, God will make a new heaven and a new earth - brand new - like the Garden of Eden, where there is no sickness, no dying, no sighing, no genocides, no war, nothing. ALL those things will be passed away, along with the perps. (who will get the chance to eternally regret their choices).
Many question, or mock this prophesy.. saying things like - ‘Hah! ALL things 'keep happening like it did in the beginning'.. The answer is found in the reality that God worked 6 days and rested 1 day.. later saying 'One day is to me like 1000 years' - A thinly veiled hint about the timing of this world- I.e.. 6,000 years of work- 1000 years of rest.
SO MANY SIGNS are pointing to our being at the end of the Age.
FIRST of all, the Garden was approximately 6,000 years ago. The end of the ‘6th day’ is at hand.
Then, the evil in the world matches Noah’s day when every thought of too many men is totally evil… (This verse reminds me of Netanyahu - a man wholey without human compassion - who speaks of murdering people, as if it were ‘mowing the lawn.’ The darkness in his heart is unfathomable.)
‘And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually’. Genesis 6:5
The evil in the heart of man is played out continually on the world stage at a level none of us have ever seen in our lives, who did not live through the world wars. It reminds me of the ‘Shark Frenzy’ that oceanographer Jacques Cousteau used to talk about. When the sharks see their opportunity slip away, and their prey with it, they go into a ‘blood bath feeding frenzy’. This is an analogy of satan who knows that his time is short. He is in a feeding frenzy for souls.
(IF EVIL is at an all time high, satan knows his time is short; So, then, do we.)
Then, there is the sign of the worldwide tide turning against both the US and Israel. (partners in crime) Which indicates we are fast approaching the denouement of both nations, thus indicating the end of the age - because the destruction of the USA comes before the man of perdition rising up to assemble the nations armies and attack Israel.
The ‘Denouement’ of our 2 nations is the sum total of Jeremiah chapter 50 - which tells of the end of Israel and the USA. I wrote about this very thing right →HERE.
PS - ‘G’ - I wholeheartedly agree with your first statement, which is why the mass murder going on in Israel is the focus of most of my current activism, donations, and prayers.
Mark my words, God agrees with you too. Israel’s outrageous behavior has His attention; They, and the the US - are about to see consequences. Forewarned is forearmed. The only safety in approaching catastrophes - is in Jesus Christ.
God bless you.
Victoria