British comedian Stephen Fry was asked what he would say to God.
“Why should I respect a capricious, mean-minded, stupid God who creates a world which is so full of injustice and pain? It’s utterly, utterly evil. Bone cancer in children? What’s that about? God is quite clearly a maniac, utter maniac.”
The interviewer then asked Fry about the wonders of creation. Fry responded, “Yes, the world is very splendid but it also has in it insects whose whole life cycle is to burrow into the eyes of children and make them blind. Why? Why did you do that to us? It is perfectly apparent that he is monstrous. Utterly monstrous and deserves no respect whatsoever. The moment you banish him, life becomes simpler, purer, cleaner, more worth living.”
When I ran across this passage online, I said nothing, exercising patience, as God does thousands of times a day. (I often enter these “discussions,” but only if I know the person who drafted the original post. In my experience, little good comes from online arguments with strangers.)
But I was tempted to enter the fray, to argue first of all, that it is we who sinned, not God. That when mankind sinned, creation fell. There were no eyeball-eating parasites before the fall of creation. Illness and death were not God’s original design. We live in a beautiful, but fallen world, surrounded by beautiful people, some of whom are monsters of incalculable evil. But God remains holy. He loves us, and he extends mercy and grace to us even in our sin. “While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” Romans 5:8.
In fact, it is not the unforgiven who should be bringing charges against God, but it is God who will bring charges against the unforgiven.
One day God will assemble all the nations, all the men and women from all ages of humanity and charge them with their own monstrous crimes: kidnapping children, selling people into slavery, robbing God’s temples, and all the rest.
“I will gather all the nations, and will bring them down into the valley … and plead with them for my people, my heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations … They have cast lots for my people, and have given a boy for a harlot, and sold a girl for wine, that they might drink … Ye have taken my silver and gold and have carried into your temples my finest things … The children of Judah and Jerusalem have ye sold unto the Grecians” Joel 3:2-6.
Then God addresses those who seem bent on fighting him. Perhaps Stephen Fry would appreciate this invitation:
“Proclaim this among the Gentiles: Prepare for war … Beat your plowshares into swords, and your pruning hooks into spears. Let the weak say I am strong. Assemble yourselves and come, all ye heathen … Let the heathen be wakened, and come up to the valley of Jehoshaphat, for there will I sit to judge all the heathen round about … Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision … The sun and the moon will be darkened and the stars shall withdraw their shining. The Lord shall also roar out of Zion and utter his voice from Jerusalem” Joel 3:9-16.
God is holy. God will judge the evil among us. And the chapter ends with hope: God will bless his people. There is always grace and hope.
“The mountains shall drip down new wine, and the hills shall flow with milk, and all the rivers shall flow with waters, and a fountain shall come forth of the house of the Lord” Joel 3:18.
God who is holy and kind and good and merciful and forgiving is also the God who will judge evil. Then he will restore creation to the beauty it had before the fall. And the mountains will drip new wine, the hills flow with milk, and the rivers will flow with water from the fountain of the Lord.
Dear God, help us to understand your patience. We see evil around us every day. Give us wisdom to understand your sovereignty over sickness and death and your love that allows so many among us to continue to make bad choices. Thank you for your patience—that you are reluctant to judge evil, while we are always in a hurry to see our enemies suffer. Help us to see people through your eyes of holiness, kindness, patience, and forgiveness.
AΩ
Household Words: 