Part Ii Death And The Sovereignty Of God Series

PART II DEATH AND THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD

On December 7, 1941 bombs fell on many sons in Pearl Harbor,

and hundreds of families had their hopes and dream shattered. On

December 8, a man who had been up sobbing all night because he lost

his son confronted his pastor in anger and said, "What kind of a God

did this? If you God could have stopped this and didn't He must be a

terrible God. And if He couldn't have prevented it, He isn't worth the

time of day." The father's feelings were not unusual, but represent

the feelings that millions have had as they are confronted by the

reality of tragic death. This kind of anger is misdirected however, for

it assumes God is responsible for sin, and all of its evil consequences,

such as war and death.

This misconception, that leads so many to become angry at God for

life's tragedies, is encouraged by those who declare that God is the one

who sovereignly appoints all death. The confusion arises because Christians

do not think though what they mean, and what the Bible

means by the sovereignty of God. If you mean by the sovereignty of

God that God controls absolutely everything that happens, then you

have a fatalistic theology like that of Islam. Everything is the will of

Allah, and there is no way it can be different than it is. Whatever will

be will be, and no amount of effort on man's part can change it. All is

determined, and all is a matter of fate. This is not the Biblical view of

reality.

In the Bible we see that God has limited His sovereignty by the

freedom He has given to man, and to other free willed beings. Jesus

could say to the Jews, I would have taken you under my wings but you

would not respond. And so He wept over Jerusalem for their choice

meant death and destruction that He did not want. The Bible reveals

a God who cries out, "Why will ye die when you can choose My will

and live." The Bible puts the responsibility for sin and evil, and all of

its consequences upon those who choose to defy God, and not upon

God, who gave them their choices.

God made sin and evil a possibly by His sovereign power of

creation, but He is not responsible for it. An analogy can make this

clear. The highway department puts up signs such as, cross over

ahead, dead end, slow down, bridge out, 35mph, etc., and yet drivers

will ignore these signs and go 70mph and crash through a barrier and

get killed. If you want to apply the thinking of theology to this event,

you could say the highway department is responsible for that death.

They built the road in the first place, and had they never done so this

driver would not have been killed by driving on it. They are the

ultimate cause of this tragedy because they are the ultimate source of

the road's existence. Not only that, they also made the crossover,

or had the bridge closed for repairs, and built the road only to handle

35mph safely. They are the ones who by their power and wills made all

of the tragic deaths on that road possible.

But, is it true that they willed his death? They made it a possibility,

but the fact is they did not will that possibility to be a reality. They

proved their will was against it happening by doing all they could to

prevent it. They put up signs warning of all the dangers so people

could make wise choices and avoid suffering and death. When a

driver refuses to heed the warnings, and chooses instead to take the

risk of defying what is good for his own protection, he must bare the

responsibility for the consequences himself. Who could be so blind

that they would accuse the highway department of being cruel and

blood thirsty in planning for all of the deaths that happen on the

highway.

This is precisely what men do when they accuse God for being

responsible for tragedy, and blame Him for allowing, or not

preventing, the consequences of sinful choices. You might just as well

blame the highway department for the road as to blame God for

making men with a free will. In fact, you just as well blame the

reckless drivers mother because had she prevented her pregnancy he

never would have been alive to die in his tragic wreck. Or, she could

have kept him chained to a wall in the basement and prevented the

whole thing. We could go on and on showing that it is nothing but folly

to try and pass the buck for life's evils back to God's sovereignty.