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.
God will not allow us to escape by this trick, for He makes it clear
that in His sovereignty He does not ever will sin or evil. Since sin or
evil are a very definite part of reality, we must face the fact that it is
the result of foolish choices on the part of man, and other free willed
beings such as Satan and his demons. Satan entices men to make all
kinds of decisions that lead to tragedy and death, and it is an added
evil when men say these tragic things are the will of God.
How then are we to see the sovereignty of God in the events He
does not will? If so much happens that is not God's will being done on
earth as it is in heaven, then in what way is He superior to the forces of
evil that seem to get their will done on earth as it is in hell? Stephen's
experience reveals this clearly. The hatred and bitter rejection of the
truth that led to his unjust and violent murder was clearly a victory
for the forces of evil. Sin was in control and an innocent life was taken
from the earth, even though it had great potential for many years of
faithful service in the kingdom of God. It was a day of darkness for
many Christians who rightfully mourned Stephen's death.
The sovereignty of God is seen in the fact that when evil has killed
the body that is all it can do. That is real and terrible, but it is only a
temporary victory for evil, for death is now under the control of Jesus
Christ. He has the keys of death and hell, and not Satan, and so
Stephen went immediately into the presence of his Lord. Death was
robbed of its sting because it could not hold a child of God. Death was
made a mere door to the Father's house. God's sovereignty is seen,
not in His appointing the day of His children's death, but in that He
appoints the day of their death, whatever be the cause, to be a day of
joy and celebration as they are welcomed home. The day of death for
the believer is always a day of victory, even if the cause of their death
is the power of evil. The power of evil ends at death. That is the worst
it can do, but do not fear it, said Jesus, for when it has done its worst it
only thrusts you into my hands.
Evil men rocked Stephen to sleep with a motive of hate, but all they
succeeded in doing was to send him on a perpetual vacation to
paradise. The evil is real, and the death a tragic loss to the church,
but in the sovereignty of God the total picture is one of victory. The
Christian then must look on tragic death from the perspective of
Jesus. He must weep with Jesus in that it is truly tragic that evil
should have such power to ruin life on this earth. It is right and
normal for Christians to grieve over the folly of wicked men who
bring about so much unnecessary suffering and death. It is a shame
that men have to endure a world where the forces of evil are so
entrenched, and where good and godly people have suffer and die at
their hands.
The first Christian to die in the New Testament was Stephen, and
he died a violent unjust death. The first deaths in the New Testament,
however, were the Jewish baby boys who were murdered by the
heartless Herod who was trying to get rid of the Christ child. This
was one of the most cruel and barbaric acts in all the Bible. They
were totally innocent, but they died because evil powers are real, and
they often care nothing about justice and fair play. Will anyone let
Herod off the hook by saying that God must have appointed these
babies to die on that day? If that was true then Herod was doing the
perfect will of God and was God's servant rather than God's enemy.
This theory has to be rejected for Herod was clearly the enemy, and
what he did was evil and not the will of God.
But God could have stopped it, could he not? Yes He could have,
and that is what most people think God's sovereignty means, that He
can do anything to get His will done. That is why people look at the
tragedies that evil produces in the world and say God must have had
a purpose in it. Behind this thinking is the idea that since God
permitted the tragedy when He had the power to prevent it, there
must be some reason or purpose behind it. In a way they are right.
God does permit evil for a purpose, but this is not to say that every
act of evil is planned or permitted by God for some specific purpose.
Evil is permitted because that is the only way God can have a truly
free-willed being who can choose good rather than evil. God in His
sovereign power could stop men from choosing evil, but to do so would
be contrary to His ultimate purpose.
The tragedy is when people do not understand God's purpose in
allowing evil, and begin to try and make evil good by assuming the
sovereignty of God is behind all that is. This kind of thinking is what
produced Job's friends and made them such a big pain in the neck.
One of the finest books I ever read on suffering was, If I Die At Thirty
by Meg Woodson, the mother of 13 year old Peggy, and Joey her
younger brother, both of whom had Cystic Fibrosis. This incurable
disease kills 50% of children who have it before their 15th birthday.
The book is largely conversation between the mother and her
daughter after she discovers she will not likely live many more years.
If you enjoy a good cry this will be your kind of book. I don't
especially enjoy it, but could not help it as I read this true story. But
what impressed me most was the profound maturity of 13 year old
Peggy. Listen to her words of response as she listened to a local radio
talk show dealing with parents of mentally retarded children.
"Why did God make my child retarded? Why did God send
that tornado? Why did God give me Cystic Fibrosis? Peggy
mimicked as she turned off the radio. Why do people
always say that? God didn't do any of those things." The
mother writes, "Quick tears burned my eyes. How carefully
I'd refrained from bringing up the question of why
Peg had Cystic Fibrosis.....Somehow I'd felt I couldn't
bear it if she pointed the accusing finger at God. But here
she'd brought up the subject herself, and the only finger she
pointed was at the people who pointed the finger at God.
"Don't they know He's not like that?" She cried, indignantly.
"He planned everything to be good. He wouldn't do mean
things like that. They say God did this or that mean thing
to make them better people. That's dumb. You know there's
one thing I hate about Cystic Fibrosis camp. Half the kids
there don't even believe in God. I don't know about Joey's
side, but on the girls side its like they've said, God gave me
Cystic Fibrosis-goodbye God."
Here was a 13 year old dying teenager who had already learned
from life the negative effects of a false theology. People who feel God
in His sovereignty is the cause of suffering tend to forsake Him and
blame Him. It is one of Satan's most cleaver tricks to get people to
think that his evil works are the will of God. God forbid that we add
to the problem by promoting such a view of His sovereignty. Let us
promote the Biblical view of Christ who reveals God's will to be one of
victory over evil and suffering. When His sovereign will is finally and
fully fulfilled all suffering and death will be no more. This is a true
picture of the sovereignty of God.
