Sometime ago I read that the East Germans had abandoned it efforts to man with armed guards the towers that were along the border between East Germany and West Germany. The border was 850 miles long. The East Germans, the communists, had erected more than 700 watchtowers to keep the enemy out and to keep their own people in....
The background of this passage is that great event of the children of Israel moving into the Promised Land. God came to Moses and told him to appoint men to go and spy out the land that he would give to them. The question might come to your mind, “If God is going to give it to them, why then should they go and spy it ou...
Would you open your Bibles to the book of Numbers 14:24, and then in a moment we will look at just one line out of verse 24, chapter 14. This past week newspapers all over the land carried the news that Henry Ford II had died. You know that he was the grandson of the man who founded the Ford Motor Company. He was hailed...
Once we buried a young lady who was only 21 years old. She was killed in a head-on collision while on her way to church. The night before the funeral, my daughter asked why God allows things like this to happen.
I wish I knew. Things like this have puzzled saints, wise men, and philosophers since the world began.
There is simply no one easy answer as to why tragedies like this happen. The answer may lie in the fact that God made us free. He created us with the ability to make our own choices, and choices always involve consequences. If we are careless or foolish in our choices, or if others are, we may suffer because of them. If God did not allow us freedom, we’d be less than people. We’d be robots.
This may be the only explanation we will ever have for some suffering. However, we do not have to know why things happen in order to be victorious over them. On the cross Jesus cried out “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46) But the heavens were as brass. God was silent. He didn’t even answer his own Son. Jesus might have despaired and become bitter against God. But instead he said, “Father, into thy hands I commend [entrust, hand over] my spirit” (Luke 23:46).
This kind of faith is far more important than any answer we might receive. In our lives, as in the life of Jesus, it is faith that makes the difference between victory and defeat.
So keep believing in God no matter what. Commit your life to him and regardless of what happens, God will help you.