In A World Gone Mad, Where Is God?

“[God] has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.” [1]

Sexually frustrated men driving vans on city sidewalks intent on killing innocent and helpless women, out-of-control students terrorising schools and slaughtering classmates, politicians bending the rules to enrich themselves, drug dealers selling deadly drugs to our children—I’m not sure how much more of these news stories we can take. Our world seems to lurch from tragedy-to-tragedy, shooting-to-shooting, murder-to-murder, grief-to-grief. With each new story detailing what seems to be senseless violence or gratuitous degradation, we hear one universal cry—“life isn’t fair.”

You know what? Life isn’t fair! Innocent people are taken far too soon. Bullies belittle those who should never be tormented by their hurtful torment. Principles are sacrificed to the gods of tolerance and niceness. The Psalmist was correct when he wrote of God’s people,

“For your sake we are killed all the day long;

we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”

[PSALM 44:22]

It’s almost a certainty that you learned quite early in life to protest, “It’s not fair!” No doubt you squealed in anger “It’s not fair!” to your father or to your mother when a sibling got a treat and you didn’t, or when you were not allowed to attend a concert that all your friends were attending. When you were passed over for some recognition at school or even in the church, you may have seethed and muttered the complaint of the perpetually injured, the cry of contemporary victimhood—“It’s not fair!” All your disappointments during childhood were preparing you for the day when adulthood would arrive, and you would be well-trained to protest, “It’s not fair!”

What great disappointment finally, firmly introduced you to the imbalanced scales of life? Was it a major tragedy? A car wreck that left you bereft of family or friends? Did you experience the death of a child for which you had long prayed? Perhaps it was not tragedy in that particular dreadful fashion; perhaps friends forgot you, or a teacher ignored you, or an adult abused you and you protested in your disappointment, “It’s not fair!” Did a friend invite you to her wedding when your own marriage was being torn apart, and you wept, crying, “It’s not fair!”

Have you ever prayed the psalmist’s prayer? “How long, O Lord, will you look on” [PSALM 35:17]? When did you first ask the question asked by the prophet so many years ago, “Why does the way of the wicked prosper” [JEREMIAH 12:1]? Why, indeed? Life is not fair! Drug dealers get rich, feeding on the death of men and women whom we know. Sex offenders are not held to account. Politicians continue to lie their way into office, far too many of them exposed as crooks. Murderers are not called to account for their misdeeds. And among the churches, charlatans weasel their way into positions of authority and destroy the Zion of God. Hypocrites abound, and we question God. How long will injustice flourish? Where is God in all this? Is He unable to put an end to the evil that seems to plague our world?

God’s answer to our anguished cry is direct: He will not wait as long as one might think! Scripture reveals a somber promise: “[God] has fixed a day on which he will judge the world” [ACTS 17:31]. God is not sitting idly by; He is not twiddling his thumbs or mindlessly passing worry beads through His fingers as He helplessly watches evil run rampant throughout the length and breadth of the land. Every passing day brings us closer to the day in which God will judge all mankind. A Judgment Day has been chosen; the hour is marked, and the moment reserved. Divine judgement is not merely a possibility—it is stark reality.

JUDGEMENT DAY — Judgement Day! Now, there is an unpopular term. We intuitively dislike even the suggestion of a day of reckoning, which is ironic. We disdain judgement, but we value justice; however, justice is impossible without judgement. For that reason, the Word of God reminds us, “We must all appear before the judgement seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil” [2 CORINTHIANS 5:10].

I must answer for the words I have spoken, precisely as the Master cautioned. It was while Jesus was speaking to the Pharisees on one particular occasion that He delivered this warning, “Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or make the tree bad and its fruit bad, for the tree is known by its fruit. You brood of vipers! How can you speak good, when you are evil? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. The good person out of his good treasure brings forth good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure brings forth evil. I tell you, on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak, for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned” [MATTHEW 12:33-37].