Never Forget

On this date in 2001, al-Qaeda carried out the deadliest attack on American soil. Nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercial airliners intending to fly them into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. They succeeded in bringing down both towers and damaging the Pentagon. Best estimates put the death toll around 3,000. "Never forget" became the theme after that ... although, for the large part, we have. After all, it has been 22 years. The current batch of young people weren't around to remember it. But those who were old enough to remember can still recall the horror of that day.

Those of us who recall watched the whole thing unfold on that fateful morning. We saw live feeds of aircraft colliding with the twin towers, of people falling/leaping from the buildings, of smoke and flame and ultimate total collapse of both towers. We watched as brave emergency workers risked (and lost) their lives to get as many out as possible. (Estimates put up to 18,000 people in the twin towers at the time of the attack. Of those, less than 3,000 didn't make it out.) We listened to recordings of the valiant passengers who, apparently, fought back on United Flight 93, bringing that plane down before it could reach its intended target. The event spawned our "war on terror" and tighter airport security among other things. We read of rescuers who survived, but endured long-term health consequences. It was only a year ago that Biden (badly) ended the efforts of the troops in Afghanistan seeking to prevent another such attack.

What do we take away from this? Lots of people have answers for that. Mine is likely somewhat different. I would answer, like Joseph, "You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good" (Gen 50:20). I would suggest, "We know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose" (Rom 8:28). I would argue that God "works all things after the counsel of His will" (Eph 1:11), and what He does is always good. So, knowing God, I would maintain that 9/11 was evil and tragic and horrifying, but that God is still in control and we can still rejoice in the Lord.

Yes, We Forgot

Twenty-one years ago on this day a group of dedicated, evil men flew multiple airplanes into multiple buildings killing thousands of Americans. Nineteen terrorists and some 3,000 other people lost their lives. Anyone who was watching it happen back then will never forget those scenes -- never forget the shock, the horror, the tragedy. Most of us also remember the aftermath, the setting down of all sorts of trivial pursuits to pull together and recover. Like so many soldiers in foxholes, there was a push for many to revisit God. We were joined together by a calamity. And that's all behind us now.

On that terrible day, 19 men hijacked 4 airliners to fly them into 4 targets. Two hit the Twin Towers in New York, one hit the Pentagon, and courageous passengers took down the 4th. I remember the talking heads warning that some 50,000 people might be at work in the World Trade Center at that hour. I knew that each one of those airliners could carry over 120 people each. Who knew how many could have been killed at the Pentagon? Who knew how many more could have died if that 4th plane hadn't gone down? The numbers were staggering. And then ... they weren't. In the North Tower, 1400 people died, and more than 600 died in the South Tower. Many escaped running down stairs, but, for "reasons unknown," there just weren't nearly as many at work that morning than could have been. On the aircraft with potentially more than 500 deaths, only 265 were killed. There were some 125 people killed at the Pentagon. Others -- bystanders, emergency workers, etc. -- died, but as horrible as those numbers were, they were not nearly as bad as the potential numbers.

No, we haven't forgotten the day. There are still tributes, reminders, etc. Of course, no one under the age of 21 remembers it ... because they didn't see it, but a good part of us still do. It's not the day we've forgotten. We've forgotten the unity we experienced with shared tragedy. We've forgotten that we are one people underneath it all. We've forgotten the mercy that God showed by providentially keeping so many from traveling or working that day. Mostly we've forgotten -- us believers -- that God is the God who causes well-being and brings calamity (Isa 45:7). We've forgotten that the Lord gives and the Lord takes away and, in all cases, deserves our worship (Job 1:21). We've forgotten to pray ceaselessly and give thanks in everything (1 Thess 5:17-18). Let the world forget; let us not forget that God is in control.

Foxholes and Christians - Reprise

(I wrote this in the days following Sep. 11, 2001. I wrote it for myself. Not too many others have seen it. But today is the 15th anniversary of 9/11, so I thought I'd share it with you. It's longer than my normal post. I think it's worth it. I think it's something we must not forget ... and I'm not talking about 9/11.)

The events of September 11 and following have been shocking, frightening, unnerving, devastating. They have stirred emotions and responses that one wouldn't have found a week before the aircraft hit those buildings and killed thousands of Americans. In the aftermath, an interesting series of events has unfolded. A resounding "God bless America!" has been shouted around the country that has resoundingly evicted God from America. The masses have flocked to prayer services. Leadership has called on God for support. The President has declared that God is on our side. The old saying, "There are no atheists in foxholes", has been demonstrated once again. My question, however, isn't about these frightened people who are turning to God in time of trouble. My question is about Christians. In this new surge of spirituality, what is the Church offering? What are the Christians doing in the foxholes?

The public responses have been embarrassing at best. One Christian leader has stated that America got what it deserved. This is a running theme in many churches. We are a decadent country, and God is judging America. Others are backpedaling. "God didn't have anything to do with this," they assure us. "God is a gentleman." Some religious leaders are on a similar bandwagon. "This isn't God's fault – it's the fault of Man's Free Will." Private responses have been similar. Christians have responded with everything from "Kill ‘em all and let God sort it out" to "God loves everyone and would never allow this to occur." So, with this gaping national wound bleeding from our televisions and a mad rush for support and answers to the best place to find support and answers – the Church – all we have to offer is either an angry God who smites His enemies or an uninvolved God who was just as appalled as we were and wishes He could have done something about it.

What ever happened to the God of the Bible? This God seems to be a different sort of God than the one of which we're hearing from Christians. This is what God says about Himself in the words of Scripture:

Do you not know? Have you not heard? Has it not been declared to you from the beginning? Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth? It is He who sits above the vault of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers, who stretches out the heavens like a curtain and spreads them out like a tent to dwell in. He it is who reduces rulers to nothing, who makes the judges of the earth meaningless. Scarcely have they been planted, scarcely have they been sown, scarcely has their stock taken root in the earth, but He merely blows on them, and they wither, and the storm carries them away like stubble. "To whom then will you liken Me that I should be his equal?" says the Holy One (Isa. 40:21-25).

Have you not heard? Long ago I did it, from ancient times I planned it. Now I have brought it to pass, that you should turn fortified cities into ruinous heaps. Therefore their inhabitants were short of strength, they were dismayed and put to shame; they were as the vegetation of the field and as the green herb, as grass on the housetops is scorched before it is grown up (Isa. 37:26-27).

I am the LORD, and there is no other, the One forming light and creating darkness, causing well-being and creating calamity; I am the LORD who does all these (Isa. 45:6-7).

These are words from Isaiah, but they are God speaking about Himself. He says that from His viewpoint human beings are "like grasshoppers". He says that He "reduces rulers to nothing". He says that He destroys their crops. He says that He plans to destroy their fortified cities, and He brings it to pass. In Isaiah 45, God Himself declares that He creates calamity. This is the image God is presenting concerning Himself.

Does God cause bad things? It is important, in answering the question, that we understand that God does not cause sin. Very clearly, "God cannot be tempted by evil, and He Himself does not tempt anyone." (James 1:13) But don't be deceived into believing that God does not cause unpleasant events. He says He creates calamity. And even in the sin of Man, God is not out of control. He doesn't cause evil, but He surely ordains it. Our clearest proof is our most blessed event, the death of Christ. No sin was more heinous than Judas Iscariot's betrayal of Christ. Of this event, Jesus said, "For indeed, the Son of Man is going as it has been determined; but woe to that man by whom He is betrayed!" (Luke 22:22) In other words, God planned for Judas to do what Judas would do. It was foreordained. Judas still bore the responsibility of his choice ("Woe to that man by whom He is betrayed!"), but his sin did not mean a deviation from God's plan.

Do not be deceived. God is sovereign. He plans the events that bring us happiness. He plans the events that bring us sorrow. It is all in His hand, and it is good.

Solomon writes on the same topic in Ecclesiastes.

Consider the work of God, for who is able to straighten what He has bent? In the day of prosperity be happy, but in the day of adversity consider -- God has made the one as well as the other so that man may not discover anything that will be after him (Eccl. 7:13-14).

Solomon claims that God has made both the day of prosperity and the day of adversity. He claims that God does it for a reason.

Interestingly, throughout Scripture we see people who understand this and accept it. Job says, "The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away. Blessed be the Name of the Lord" (Job 1:21). We would look puzzled at Job. "The Lord took away? And you say He is to be blessed?" But God's perspective on Job's comment is "Through all this Job did not sin" (Job 1:22). We see the same concept from Sarah in Genesis. She tells her husband, "The Lord has made me barren" (Gen. 16:2). Clearly Sarah is not happy about it, but there are two features present that we lack today. First is the absolute certainty that God is in charge. It wasn't "a fluke of nature" or "a string of bad luck". The Lord did it. The second is that, while she may not have liked the condition, she accepted it and worked with it rather than complaining. She worked in the wrong direction, but to her it was not "unfair" of God to do what He had done. To her, God had the perfect right to do what He would do, and He did.

This God is a different God from is being offered to many within the Church today. This God is a God who is intimately involved in everyday existence. This God doesn't retreat from saying "I am the One creating calamity." Instead we read that God "works all things after the counsel of His will" (Eph. 1:11). David rejoiced in the knowledge that God had ordained all his days (Psa. 139:16).

Consider Daniel's viewpoint of his God:

The Lord gave Jehoiakim king of Judah into his hand, along with some of the vessels of the house of God; and he brought them to the land of Shinar, to the house of his god, and he brought the vessels into the treasury of his god (Dan. 1:2).

This is a key example of God at work. Today's Christian would say "God does not do bad things; these things are caused by Man's sinful Free Will." The events described in Daniel are as bad as they come. Judah was overrun and sent into captivity. The Temple was overrun and its holy vessels were put to profane use in a pagan temple. It doesn't get any worse. But Daniel starts with the very clear statement as to who was in charge in all of this. "The Lord gave" them over. It wasn't pleasant, and it wasn't pretty, but this same Daniel who believed that God had actually given His people into captivity and His holy vessels into pagan use still stood firm in his faith, as evidenced by the rest of the book of Daniel. In Daniel's view, God Himself brought all this to pass, and in Daniel's view God was allowed to do so – it was "fair".

Consider Jeremiah's viewpoint of his God:

He has filled me with bitterness, He has made me drunk with wormwood. And He has broken my teeth with gravel; He has made me cower in the dust. And my soul has been rejected from peace; I have forgotten happiness. So I say, "My strength has perished, and so has my hope from the LORD."

Remember my affliction and my wandering, the wormwood and bitterness. Surely my soul remembers and is bowed down within me. This I recall to my mind, therefore I have hope. The Lord's lovingkindnesses indeed never cease, for His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is Thy faithfulness. "The LORD is my portion," says my soul, "Therefore I have hope in Him." The LORD is good to those who wait for Him, to the person who seeks Him. It is good that he waits silently for the salvation of the LORD. It is good for a man that he should bear the yoke in his youth (Lam. 3:15-27).

Here we have Jeremiah standing in the ruins of his homeland. There is no doubt that Jeremiah is unhappy. Faith in God's sovereignty does not necessarily mean bliss. He says he has no peace. He says that he has even lost hope. Then something occurs to him that renews his hope. What is that? "The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases. His mercies never come to an end. They are new every morning. Great is Thy faithfulness." We know these words. They're in our songs. But Jeremiah lived them. He understood that nothing around him brought comfort; nothing around him gave reason for hope that circumstances would improve. His single source of hope was in the simple, sure confidence that God was God. While we clamor for joy or peace or blessing, Jeremiah said, "I've lost all that ... but God is good enough." Paul says the same thing. "I count all things as loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ." (Phil. 3:8) Knowing God is enough.

Consider Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego's viewpoint of their God:

Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego answered and said to the king, "O Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to give you an answer concerning this matter. If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the furnace of blazing fire; and He will deliver us out of your hand, O king. But even if He does not, let it be known to you, O king, that we are not going to serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up" (Dan. 3:16-18).

These three men stood on the brink of disaster. They were about to suffer a horrible death. So hot was the fire they were to face that it killed those who threw them into it. They spoke confidently, as we would have our heroes do. "Our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the furnace of blazing fire." "You tell them, guys," we cheer. "God can deliver you. Trust in Him." We're behind them. But they aren't lost in a false sense of "God only wants us to be comfortable". They recognize that this may not be His plan. "Even if He does not ... we are not going to serve your gods." Here we would typically draw the line. If God, in our estimation, is going to be fair to these guys, He must reward their faithfulness to Him by saving them. To do otherwise would not be right. Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego disagree. To them, God decides who lives and who dies, and God is just in doing so. His saving them from the fire is not the expected result of their faith. To them, this is right. Their God is the One who decides. Their God is right in what He decides.

This is not the vengeful God being portrayed on one end, the "hands off" God in the middle, or the "He loves us too much" God being offered on the other end. This is the God who is intimately involved in the everyday existence of human beings. This is the sovereign, omnipotent, omniscient God who brings both affliction and comfort, justice and mercy. This God answers our cries of "That's not fair!" with the simple retort, "Who are you, O man, who answers back to God?" (Rom. 9:20) This God grants us suffering (Phil. 1:29). This is the God who leads us through the valley of the shadow of death. There may be painful and frightening things in this valley, but "I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me." This is the sovereign Lord who "comforts us in all our afflictions" (2 Cor. 1:4) and provides a peace that passes understanding (Phil. 4:7) by never leaving or forsaking us (Heb. 13:5). We don't have confidence in God because He makes us comfortable. We have confidence in God because He is God, because He is sovereign, and because He will always do what is best.

We have attempted to "fill in the blanks" where God is concerned, and we have failed badly. When some in Jesus' day tried to do that, Jesus responded accordingly:

Now on the same occasion there were some present who reported to Him about the Galileans, whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. And He answered and said to them, "Do you suppose that these Galileans were greater sinners than all other Galileans, because they suffered this fate? I tell you, no, but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. Or do you suppose that those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them, were worse culprits than all the men who live in Jerusalem? I tell you, no, but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish" (Luke 13:1-5).

Jesus' disciples made the same mistake with the man born blind.

His disciples asked Him, saying, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he should be born blind?" Jesus answered, "It was neither that this man sinned, nor his parents; but it was in order that the works of God might be displayed in him" (John 9:2 3).

In both cases, people grossly misjudged the circumstances. As Job's "friends" who gathered to inform him that his suffering was the result of his sin, these assumed that bad things do not happen to good people. The premise is "If something bad happens to you, it's because you did something wrong." Jesus disagrees. "Do you suppose that these Galileans were greater sinners than all other Galileans, because they suffered this fate?" Jesus makes two clear points. First, not all unhappy events are punishment from God. Second, we all deserve unhappy events. We have tricked ourselves into believing that we deserve pleasant circumstances, and God is unfair or angry if we don't get them. What we have missed is that we deserve Hell, and any pleasant event in life is an act of sheer grace on God's part.

In fact, Jesus holds that unpleasant events can actually be God's plan, "in order that the works of God might be displayed." From the perspective of our Lord Jesus, our dire circumstances are God's opportunity to shine, to display His power, to show His strength. God told Paul, "My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness" (2 Cor. 12:9). We view our pain and suffering as things to escape. God views them as opportunities for Him to declare His glory.

Did God judge America? Perhaps. Or did He merely withdraw His hand of protection? Could be. But it is folly to try to explain God's intent in the events of September 11 without a specific word from God. It is foolish to assume, for instance, that they are God's judgments and chastening for specific sins. Instead, we need to recognize that every bad thing that happens is part of God's curse upon humanity for our rebellion against Him in our father Adam. We dwell in a cursed world. So we should not jump to the conclusion that all bad things that happen are God's acts of retribution for specific sinful actions. Jesus' teaching in Luke 13:1-5 makes this clear. Every evil that befalls us beckons us to return to God Himself. We need to flee the anemic God offered by our therapeutic culture who loves everybody without discrimination. We need to flee the irate God of the other view that capriciously smites His enemies with wild abandon. The God we need is the God of Daniel, who sovereignly ordains calamity for good purposes. The God we need is the God of Jeremiah who removes tranquility while remaining faithful. The God we need is the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who may not meet our expectations of what we might like, but is certainly to be trusted to perform what is best. We need to see, with Joseph, that "you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good" (Gen. 50:20). This God is not a powerless god who cannot intervene, nor is He a "gentleman" who does not intervene. He is not subject to Man's Free Will nor given to fits of temper. He is the LORD God Almighty (Rev. 4:8), the King of kings and Lord of lords (Rev. 17:14), the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end (Rev. 22:13). He is God of all, over all, through all, and in all (Eph. 4:5), for Whom and through Whom are all things (Heb. 2:10).

It is only in that sovereign, good, faithful God that we can find a peace that passes understanding in times of harsh crisis, and it is only that God that we can offer to the hurting world around us. Any other God is not God at all, but a caricature of the True God – an idol carved by human hands.

Christians in Foxholes

Today is the 13th anniversary of the infamous attack on America by a terror group intent on killing Americans because they are Americans. The event was devastating. The aftermath was harsh. And still we remember.

The responses to the attack were interesting. The shock and terror, of course, was expected, and even the patriotic, "God bless America!" even though we're largely a nation that has evicted God from the public square. Some Christian leaders had to foolishly voice their opinion that this was God's judgment on America. A popular response was, "This wasn't God's fault; it is the fault of Man's Free Will." Based on conversations I've had since, it appears that this is the prevalent view. God has His hands tied by His creation when it comes to the bad things that happen. Hurricanes hit and, boy, was God sad that that happened, but, hey, what's a God to do? Terrorists blow up buildings and, oh, my goodness, doesn't God just wish He could have done something about it but, well, He isn't going to interfere. One well-known Christian woman assured us "God is a gentleman and won't interfere." Really? Is that the God we have? Did He not know or was He powerless to stop it or both?

What ever happened to the God of the Bible? This God seems to be a different sort of God than the one of which we hear from Christians. This is what God says about Himself in the words of Scripture:

Do you not know? Have you not heard? Has it not been declared to you from the beginning? Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth? It is He who sits above the vault of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers, who stretches out the heavens like a curtain and spreads them out like a tent to dwell in. He it is who reduces rulers to nothing, who makes the judges of the earth meaningless. Scarcely have they been planted, scarcely have they been sown, scarcely has their stock taken root in the earth, but He merely blows on them, and they wither, and the storm carries them away like stubble. "To whom then will you liken Me that I should be his equal?" says the Holy One (Isa. 40:21-25).

Have you not heard? Long ago I did it, from ancient times I planned it. Now I have brought it to pass, that you should turn fortified cities into ruinous heaps. Therefore their inhabitants were short of strength, they were dismayed and put to shame; they were as the vegetation of the field and as the green herb, as grass on the housetops is scorched before it is grown up (Isa. 37:26-27).

I am the LORD, and there is no other, the One forming light and creating darkness, causing well-being and creating calamity; I am the LORD who does all these (Isa. 45:6-7).

These are words from Isaiah, but they are God speaking about Himself. He says that from His viewpoint human beings are "like grasshoppers". He says that He "reduces rulers to nothing". He says that He destroys their crops. He says that He plans to destroy their fortified cities, and He brings it to pass. In Isaiah 45, God Himself declares that He creates calamity. This is the image God is presenting concerning Himself.

Does God cause bad things? It is important, in answering the question, that we understand that God does not cause sin. Very clearly, "God cannot be tempted by evil, and He Himself does not tempt anyone." (James 1:13) But don't be deceived into believing that God does not cause unpleasant events. He says He creates calamity. And even in the sin of Man, God is not out of control. He doesn't cause evil, but He surely ordains it. Our clearest proof is our most blessed event, the death of Christ. No sin was more heinous than Judas Iscariot's betrayal of Christ. Of this event, Jesus said, "For indeed, the Son of Man is going as it has been determined; but woe to that man by whom He is betrayed!" (Luke 22:22) In other words, God planned for Judas to do what Judas would do. It was foreordained. Judas still bore the responsibility of his choice ("Woe to that man by whom He is betrayed!"), but his sin did not mean a deviation from God's plan. God predestined it (Acts 4:27-28).

Do not be deceived. God is sovereign. He plans the events that bring us happiness. He plans the events that bring us sorrow. It is all in His hand, and it is good.

This God is a different God from is being offered to many within the Church today. This God is a God who is intimately involved in everyday existence. This God doesn't retreat from saying "I am the One creating calamity." Instead we read that God "works all things after the counsel of His will" (Eph. 1:11). David rejoiced in the knowledge that God had ordained all his days (Psa. 139:16).

Consider Daniel's viewpoint of his God:

The Lord gave Jehoiakim king of Judah into his hand, along with some of the vessels of the house of God; and he brought them to the land of Shinar, to the house of his god, and he brought the vessels into the treasury of his god (Dan. 1:2).

This is a key example of God at work. Today's Christian would say "God does not do bad things; these things are caused by Man's sinful Free Will." The events described in Daniel are as bad as they come. Judah was overrun and sent into captivity. The Temple was overrun and its holy vessels were put to profane use in a pagan temple. It doesn't get any worse. But Daniel starts with the very clear statement as to who was in charge in all of this. "The Lord gave" them over. It wasn't pleasant, and it wasn't pretty, but this same Daniel who believed that God had actually given His people into captivity and His holy vessels into pagan use still stood firm in his faith, as evidenced by the rest of the book of Daniel. In Daniel's view, God Himself brought all this to pass, and in Daniel's view God was allowed to do so – it was "fair".

Consider Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego's viewpoint of their God:

Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego answered and said to the king, "O Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to give you an answer concerning this matter. If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the furnace of blazing fire; and He will deliver us out of your hand, O king. But even if He does not, let it be known to you, O king, that we are not going to serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up" (Dan. 3:16-18).

These three men stood on the brink of disaster. They were about to suffer a horrible death. So hot was the fire they were to face that it killed those who threw them into it. They spoke confidently, as we would have our heroes do. "Our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the furnace of blazing fire." "You tell them, guys," we cheer. "God can deliver you. Trust in Him." We're behind them. But they aren't lost in a false sense of "God only wants us to be comfortable". They recognize that this may not be His plan. "Even if He does not . . . we are not going to serve your gods." Here we would typically draw the line. If God, in our estimation, is going to be fair to these guys, He must reward their faithfulness to Him by saving them. To do otherwise would not be right. Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego disagree. To them, God decides who lives and who dies, and God is just in doing so. His saving them from the fire is not the expected result of their faith. To them, this is right. Their God is the One who decides. Their God is right in what He decides.

This is not the vengeful God being portrayed on one end, the "hands off" God in the middle, or the "He loves us too much" God being offered on the other end. This is the God who is intimately involved in the everyday existence of human beings. This is the sovereign, omnipotent, omniscient God who brings both affliction and comfort, justice and mercy. This God answers our cries of "That's not fair!" with the simple retort, "Who are you, O man, who answers back to God?" (Rom. 9:20) This God grants us suffering (Phil. 1:29). This is the God who leads us through the valley of the shadow of death. There may be painful and frightening things in this valley, but "I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me." This is the sovereign Lord who "comforts us in all our afflictions" (2 Cor. 1:4) and provides a peace that passes understanding (Phil. 4:7) by never leaving or forsaking us (Heb. 13:5). We don't have confidence in God because He makes us comfortable. We have confidence in God because He is God, because He is sovereign, and because He will always do what is best.

We have attempted to "fill in the blanks" where God is concerned, and we have failed badly. Did God judge America? Perhaps. Or did He merely withdraw His hand of protection? Could be. But it is folly to try to explain God's intent in the events of September 11 without a specific word from God. It is foolish to assume, for instance, that they are God's judgments and chastening for specific sins. Instead, we need to recognize that every bad thing that happens is part of God's curse upon humanity for our rebellion against Him in our father Adam. We dwell in a cursed world. So we should not jump to the conclusion that all bad things that happen are God's acts of retribution for specific sinful actions. Every evil that befalls us beckons us to return to God Himself (Luke 13:1-5). We need to flee the anemic God offered by our therapeutic culture who loves everybody without discrimination. We need to flee the irate God of the other view that capriciously smites His enemies with wild abandon. The God we need is the God of Daniel, who sovereignly ordains calamity for good purposes. The God we need is the God of Jeremiah who removes tranquility while remaining faithful. The God we need is the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who may not meet our expectations of what we might like, but is certainly to be trusted to perform what is best. We need to see, with Joseph, that "you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good" (Gen. 50:20). This God is not a powerless god who cannot intervene, nor is He a "gentleman" who does not intervene. He is not subject to Man's Free Will nor given to fits of temper. He is the LORD God Almighty (Rev. 4:8), the King of kings and Lord of lords (Rev. 17:14), the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end (Rev. 22:13). He is God of all, over all, through all, and in all (Eph. 4:5), for Whom and through Whom are all things (Heb. 2:10).

It is only in that sovereign, good, faithful God that we can find a peace that passes understanding in times of harsh crisis, and it is only that God that we can offer to the hurting world around us. Any other God is not God at all, but a caricature of the True God – an idol carved by human hands.

Remember

According to New York Magazine, the total number of people killed in the 9/11 attack was 2,753. That included 343 firefighters and paramedics, 23 police officers, 1,402 employees in Tower One, and 614 employees from Tower Two. At full capacity, the Twin Towers had a capacity of 50,000 workers and up to 200,000 visitors, but on that morning only 14,000 to 19,000 were inside. So the death count went from 50,000 to 6,700 to less than 3,000.

On the 4 aircraft that crashed that day, American Airlines Flight 11 lost 87 people, United Flight 175 lost 60, American Airlines Flight 77 lost 59, and United Flight 93 lost 40. The first plane had a capacity of 158 passengers and 11 crew members. The second could carry 168 passengers and 11 crew members. The third had a 188-passenger capacity and 6 crew members. The last one could seat 182 passengers and 7 crew members. The total potential was 731 souls. The actual total loss was 281.

The fact is that we've pretty much forgotten 9/11. Oh, sure, we remember that it was bad, but we remember badly. Given the huge numbers that should have been lost and weren't, we don't remember how gracious God was to us that day when the towers fell and the planes came down. While the numbers aren't certain, more people died in the Pearl Harbor attack of 1941 than in this event. And I say we've forgotten because we're not grateful for that. Nor are we quite mindful of the fact that there are those out there that consider America the great Satan. While we discount Christianity and discard "conservative" and "religious" as viable in the public arena, we cater to Islam, the religion that brought you around 3,000 deaths in one day. So we're losing our grasp on reality both in the grace of our God and in the danger from those who would harm us. We definitely should remember.

The Bible portrays God as Sovereign. Using Job as an example, we see a structure where God is in charge and Satan is on a leash -- a short leash. When Satan presents himself to God (Job 1:6), God points out His faithful servant, Job. Satan assures God that it's just because of God's protection. So God allows Satan to do harm with limitations (Job 1:7-12). And Satan does. The scene is repeated in Job 2. This time Satan says, "Sure, he's Your faithful servant, but only because You're protecting his flesh." So, again, God allows Satan to do harm with limitations (Job 2:1-6). What is the biblical evaluation of these two events? Job says, "The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD" (Job 1:21) and "Shall we receive good from God, and shall we not receive evil?" (Job 2:10), and the inspired writer tells us in both cases that Job did not sin (Job 1:22; 2:10). That is, Job was right. Satan caused the pain, but it came from God. And it was good and acceptable. It is on this principle that we can stand, with Job, when painful events like September 11th occur -- truly grievous things -- and thank God. God could have moved those planes before they hit. He could have prevented all of it from happening. We can either wring our hands over a God who failed (and, therefore, isn't God) or we can accept that God allows evil things to occur for His very good reasons and thank Him that He is doing good. The Lord gives; the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. Let's not forget.

10 Years Later

I still remember that morning 10 years ago. I got in my car to go to work, turned on the news, and heard ... that airplanes were running into buildings???!!! No, that can't be right. I pulled into the nearest gas station and went inside. "Hey," I said, "I'm hearing weird stuff on my radio. Are you hearing the same stuff?" He nodded gravely. When I got to work, the TV in the breakroom was on and there it was in all its horror. The company for which I worked in California had an office in one of the World Trade Center buildings, so our group was particularly keen on watching what happened. (Everyone from our company got out okay.)

The week went on from that awful Tuesday morning. Non-stop news of death and destruction. It was mind-numbing. I remember, then, on the Sunday following as I got ready for church that I suddenly didn't want to go. I'd heard 5 solid days of nothing but this stuff, and I was pretty sure the pastor would follow up with more of that stuff. I'd heard enough, thanks. And then I remembered that he had been preaching on Ephesians 1 and the next verse in his sequence was verse 11 and my heart sang. That was something I wanted to hear.

Well, the pastor missed his cue, I'm sorry to say. He glanced right over the topic and the verse and kept going. There was no passage more delightful to my ears at that time in history, but he missed it and I was disappointed. So today, the 10th anniversary of that nightmare day, in remembrance of it all, I want to be sure to point out the good news that the pastor back then seemed to miss.

In [Christ] we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of [God] who works all things according to the counsel of His will, so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of His glory (Eph 1:11-12).

There it is, in all its wonder. Oh, you didn't miss it, too, did you? Look at what Paul says. He says that God "works all things according to the counsel of His will." Imagine that! He worked the San Francisco earthquake of 1906 according to His will. He worked Hurricane Katrina according to His will. He worked the tsunamis in both Indonesia and Japan according to His will. Every natural event on the planet falls under the category of "all things", so the Lord God worked them all. But the events of 9/11 weren't natural events. They were the product of evil men acting on evil intent to produce an evil outcome. So I ask you, do the events that people cause fall under the category "all things"? I think they have to (or it's a much smaller category than it seems). That means that God intended "according to the counsel of His will" to allow those evil men to produce their evil outcome for His good purposes.

Back in Genesis some other evil men intended to snuff out the life of their hated brother. They didn't, but they sold him instead into slavery. Through a series of events, this hated brother ended up the second in command in Egypt, saving the lives of his brothers and the rest of his family. Fearing their brother's revenge, these evil men urged him to forgive them. You remember what he told them, don't you? "You meant evil against me, but God meant it for good" (Gen 50:20). In the final analysis of the events of 9/11, we can say precisely the same thing. They meant it for evil, but God meant it for good. It certainly resulted in a lot of evil. Yet, faith is premised not on sight, but on what cannot be seen. We can, then, based on the character of God, His goodness, and His sovereignty, be absolutely sure that, even if we can't enumerate all the good, the events that we recall 10 years ago were allowed by God for His good purposes and He has and will accomplish the good He intends. Let me tell you, when I have that kind of certainty, the horrors that we face in this world pale in comparison to His goodness and His sovereignty.

Foxholes and Christians (a reprise)

This is a repeat from 2006. I know it's longer than my normal post (which is likely too long anyway), but when times are tough (as they are today), I think it bears remembering, and we were all on the same "tough times" page on Sept. 11, 2001. I wrote this soon after that fateful day and will share it again because, after all, most of you have never read it.

The events of September 11 and following have been shocking, frightening, unnerving, devastating. They have stirred emotions and responses that one wouldn’t have found a week before the aircraft hit those buildings and killed thousands of Americans. In the aftermath, an interesting series of events has unfolded. A resounding "God bless America!" has been shouted around the country that has resoundingly evicted God from America. The masses have flocked to prayer services. Leadership has called on God for support. The President has declared that God is on our side. The old saying, "There are no atheists in foxholes", has been demonstrated once again. My question, however, isn’t about these frightened people who are turning to God in time of trouble. My question is about Christians. In this new surge of spirituality, what is the Church offering? What are the Christians doing in the foxholes?

The public responses have been embarrassing at best. One Christian leader has stated that America got what it deserved. This is a running theme in many churches. We are a decadent country, and God is judging America. Others are backpedaling. "God didn’t have anything to do with this," they assure us. "God is a gentleman." Some religious leaders are on a similar bandwagon. "This isn’t God’s fault – it’s the fault of Man’s Free Will." Private responses have been similar. Christians have responded with everything from "Kill ‘em all and let God sort it out" to "God loves everyone and would never allow this to occur." So, with this gaping national wound bleeding from our televisions and a mad rush for support and answers to the best place to find support and answers – the Church – all we have to offer is either an angry God who smites His enemies or an uninvolved God who was just as appalled as we were and wishes He could have done something about it.

What ever happened to the God of the Bible? This God seems to be a different sort of God than the one of which we’re hearing from Christians. This is what God says about Himself in the words of Scripture:

Do you not know? Have you not heard? Has it not been declared to you from the beginning? Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth? It is He who sits above the vault of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers, who stretches out the heavens like a curtain and spreads them out like a tent to dwell in. He it is who reduces rulers to nothing, who makes the judges of the earth meaningless. Scarcely have they been planted, scarcely have they been sown, scarcely has their stock taken root in the earth, but He merely blows on them, and they wither, and the storm carries them away like stubble. "To whom then will you liken Me that I should be his equal?" says the Holy One (Isa. 40:21-25).

Have you not heard? Long ago I did it, from ancient times I planned it. Now I have brought it to pass, that you should turn fortified cities into ruinous heaps. Therefore their inhabitants were short of strength, they were dismayed and put to shame; they were as the vegetation of the field and as the green herb, as grass on the housetops is scorched before it is grown up (Isa. 37:26-27).

I am the LORD, and there is no other, the One forming light and creating darkness, causing well-being and creating calamity; I am the LORD who does all these (Isa. 45:6-7).

These are words from Isaiah, but they are God speaking about Himself. He says that from His viewpoint human beings are "like grasshoppers". He says that He "reduces rulers to nothing". He says that He destroys their crops. He says that He plans to destroy their fortified cities, and He brings it to pass. In Isaiah 45, God Himself declares that He creates calamity. This is the image God is presenting concerning Himself.

Does God cause bad things? It is important, in answering the question, that we understand that God does not cause sin. Very clearly, "God cannot be tempted by evil, and He Himself does not tempt anyone." (James 1:13) But don’t be deceived into believing that God does not cause unpleasant events. He says He creates calamity. And even in the sin of Man, God is not out of control. He doesn’t cause evil, but He surely ordains it. Our clearest proof is our most blessed event, the death of Christ. No sin was more heinous than Judas Iscariot’s betrayal of Christ. Of this event, Jesus said, "For indeed, the Son of Man is going as it has been determined; but woe to that man by whom He is betrayed!" (Luke 22:22) In other words, God planned for Judas to do what Judas would do. It was foreordained. Judas still bore the responsibility of his choice ("Woe to that man by whom He is betrayed!"), but his sin did not mean a deviation from God’s plan.

Do not be deceived. God is sovereign. He plans the events that bring us happiness. He plans the events that bring us sorrow. It is all in His hand, and it is good.

Solomon writes on the same topic in Ecclesiastes.

Consider the work of God, for who is able to straighten what He has bent? In the day of prosperity be happy, but in the day of adversity consider -- God has made the one as well as the other so that man may not discover anything that will be after him (Eccl. 7:13-14).

Solomon claims that God has made both the day of prosperity and the day of adversity. He claims that God does it for a reason.

Interestingly, throughout Scripture we see people who understand this and accept it. Job says, "The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away. Blessed be the Name of the Lord" (Job 1:21). We would look puzzled at Job. "The Lord took away? And you say He is to be blessed?" But God’s perspective on Job’s comment is "Through all this Job did not sin" (Job 1:22). We see the same concept from Sarah in Genesis. She tells her husband, "The Lord has made me barren" (Gen. 16:2). Clearly Sarah is not happy about it, but there are two features present that we lack today. First is the absolute certainty that God is in charge. It wasn’t "a fluke of nature" or "a string of bad luck". The Lord did it. The second is that, while she may not have liked the condition, she accepted it and worked with it rather than complaining. She worked in the wrong direction, but to her it was not "unfair" of God to do what He had done. To her, God had the perfect right to do what He would do, and He did.

This God is a different God from is being offered to many within the Church today. This God is a God who is intimately involved in everyday existence. This God doesn’t retreat from saying "I am the One creating calamity." Instead we read that God "works all things after the counsel of His will" (Eph. 1:11). David rejoiced in the knowledge that God had ordained all his days (Psa. 139:16).

Consider Daniel’s viewpoint of his God:

The Lord gave Jehoiakim king of Judah into his hand, along with some of the vessels of the house of God; and he brought them to the land of Shinar, to the house of his god, and he brought the vessels into the treasury of his god (Dan. 1:2).

This is a key example of God at work. Today’s Christian would say "God does not do bad things; these things are caused by Man’s sinful Free Will." The events described in Daniel are as bad as they come. Judah was overrun and sent into captivity. The Temple was overrun and its holy vessels were put to profane use in a pagan temple. It doesn’t get any worse. But Daniel starts with the very clear statement as to who was in charge in all of this. "The Lord gave" them over. It wasn’t pleasant, and it wasn’t pretty, but this same Daniel who believed that God had actually given His people into captivity and His holy vessels into pagan use still stood firm in his faith, as evidenced by the rest of the book of Daniel. In Daniel’s view, God Himself brought all this to pass, and in Daniel’s view God was allowed to do so – it was "fair".

Consider Jeremiah’s viewpoint of his God:

He has filled me with bitterness, He has made me drunk with wormwood. And He has broken my teeth with gravel; He has made me cower in the dust. And my soul has been rejected from peace; I have forgotten happiness. So I say, "My strength has perished, and so has my hope from the LORD."

Remember my affliction and my wandering, the wormwood and bitterness. Surely my soul remembers and is bowed down within me. This I recall to my mind, therefore I have hope. The Lord's lovingkindnesses indeed never cease, for His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is Thy faithfulness. "The LORD is my portion," says my soul, "Therefore I have hope in Him." The LORD is good to those who wait for Him, to the person who seeks Him. It is good that he waits silently for the salvation of the LORD. It is good for a man that he should bear the yoke in his youth (Lam. 3:15-27).

Here we have Jeremiah standing in the ruins of his homeland. There is no doubt that Jeremiah is unhappy. Faith in God’s sovereignty does not necessarily mean bliss. He says he has no peace. He says that he has even lost hope. Then something occurs to him that renews his hope. What is that? "The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases. His mercies never come to an end. They are new every morning. Great is Thy faithfulness." We know these words. They’re in our songs. But Jeremiah lived them. He understood that nothing around him brought comfort; nothing around him gave reason for hope that circumstances would improve. His single source of hope was in the simple, sure confidence that God was God. While we clamor for joy or peace or blessing, Jeremiah said, "I’ve lost all that . . . but God is good enough." Paul says the same thing. "I count all things as loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ." (Phil. 3:8) Knowing God is enough.

Consider Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego’s viewpoint of their God:

Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego answered and said to the king, "O Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to give you an answer concerning this matter. If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the furnace of blazing fire; and He will deliver us out of your hand, O king. But even if He does not, let it be known to you, O king, that we are not going to serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up" (Dan. 3:16-18).

These three men stood on the brink of disaster. They were about to suffer a horrible death. So hot was the fire they were to face that it killed those who threw them into it. They spoke confidently, as we would have our heroes do. "Our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the furnace of blazing fire." "You tell them, guys," we cheer. "God can deliver you. Trust in Him." We’re behind them. But they aren’t lost in a false sense of "God only wants us to be comfortable". They recognize that this may not be His plan. "Even if He does not . . . we are not going to serve your gods." Here we would typically draw the line. If God, in our estimation, is going to be fair to these guys, He must reward their faithfulness to Him by saving them. To do otherwise would not be right. Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego disagree. To them, God decides who lives and who dies, and God is just in doing so. His saving them from the fire is not the expected result of their faith. To them, this is right. Their God is the One who decides. Their God is right in what He decides.

This is not the vengeful God being portrayed on one end, the "hands off" God in the middle, or the "He loves us too much" God being offered on the other end. This is the God who is intimately involved in the everyday existence of human beings. This is the sovereign, omnipotent, omniscient God who brings both affliction and comfort, justice and mercy. This God answers our cries of "That’s not fair!" with the simple retort, "Who are you, O man, who answers back to God?" (Rom. 9:20) This God grants us suffering (Phil. 1:29). This is the God who leads us through the valley of the shadow of death. There may be painful and frightening things in this valley, but "I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me." This is the sovereign Lord who "comforts us in all our afflictions" (2 Cor. 1:4) and provides a peace that passes understanding (Phil. 4:7) by never leaving or forsaking us (Heb. 13:5). We don’t have confidence in God because He makes us comfortable. We have confidence in God because He is God, because He is sovereign, and because He will always do what is best.

We have attempted to "fill in the blanks" where God is concerned, and we have failed badly. When some in Jesus’ day tried to do that, Jesus responded accordingly:

Now on the same occasion there were some present who reported to Him about the Galileans, whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. And He answered and said to them, "Do you suppose that these Galileans were greater sinners than all other Galileans, because they suffered this fate? I tell you, no, but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. Or do you suppose that those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them, were worse culprits than all the men who live in Jerusalem? I tell you, no, but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish" (Luke 13:1-5).

Jesus’ disciples made the same mistake with the man born blind.

His disciples asked Him, saying, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he should be born blind?" Jesus answered, "It was neither that this man sinned, nor his parents; but it was in order that the works of God might be displayed in him" (John 9:2 3).

In both cases, people grossly misjudged the circumstances. As Job’s "friends" who gathered to inform him that his suffering was the result of his sin, these assumed that bad things do not happen to good people. The premise is "If something bad happens to you, it’s because you did something wrong." Jesus disagrees. "Do you suppose that these Galileans were greater sinners than all other Galileans, because they suffered this fate?" Jesus makes two clear points. First, not all unhappy events are punishment from God. Second, we all deserve unhappy events. We have tricked ourselves into believing that we deserve pleasant circumstances, and God is unfair or angry if we don’t get them. What we have missed is that we deserve Hell, and any pleasant event in life is an act of sheer grace on God’s part.

In fact, Jesus holds that unpleasant events can actually be God’s plan, "in order that the works of God might be displayed." From the perspective of our Lord Jesus, our dire circumstances are God’s opportunity to shine, to display His power, to show His strength. God told Paul, "My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness" (2 Cor. 12:9). We view our pain and suffering as things to escape. God views them as opportunities for Him to declare His glory.

Did God judge America? Perhaps. Or did He merely withdraw His hand of protection? Could be. But it is folly to try to explain God’s intent in the events of September 11 without a specific word from God. It is foolish to assume, for instance, that they are God’s judgments and chastening for specific sins. Instead, we need to recognize that every bad thing that happens is part of God’s curse upon humanity for our rebellion against Him in our father Adam. We dwell in a cursed world. So we should not jump to the conclusion that all bad things that happen are God’s acts of retribution for specific sinful actions. Jesus’ teaching in Luke 13:1-5 makes this clear. Every evil that befalls us beckons us to return to God Himself. We need to flee the anemic God offered by our therapeutic culture who loves everybody without discrimination. We need to flee the irate God of the other view that capriciously smites His enemies with wild abandon. The God we need is the God of Daniel, who sovereignly ordains calamity for good purposes. The God we need is the God of Jeremiah who removes tranquility while remaining faithful. The God we need is the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who may not meet our expectations of what we might like, but is certainly to be trusted to perform what is best. We need to see, with Joseph, that "you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good" (Gen. 50:20). This God is not a powerless god who cannot intervene, nor is He a "gentleman" who does not intervene. He is not subject to Man’s Free Will nor given to fits of temper. He is the LORD God Almighty (Rev. 4:8), the King of kings and Lord of lords (Rev. 17:14), the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end (Rev. 22:13). He is God of all, over all, through all, and in all (Eph. 4:5), for Whom and through Whom are all things (Heb. 2:10).

It is only in that sovereign, good, faithful God that we can find a peace that passes understanding in times of harsh crisis, and it is only that God that we can offer to the hurting world around us. Any other God is not God at all, but a caricature of the True God – an idol carved by human hands.

We Remember

Foxholes and Christians

(I wrote this in the days following Sep. 11, 2001. I wrote it for myself. Not too many others have seen it. But on this, the 5th anniversary, I thought I'd share it with others. It's longer than my normal post. I think it's worth it.)

The events of September 11 and following have been shocking, frightening, unnerving, devastating. They have stirred emotions and responses that one wouldn’t have found a week before the aircraft hit those buildings and killed thousands of Americans. In the aftermath, an interesting series of events has unfolded. A resounding “God bless America!” has been shouted around the country that has resoundingly evicted God from America. The masses have flocked to prayer services. Leadership has called on God for support. The President has declared that God is on our side. The old saying, “There are no atheists in foxholes”, has been demonstrated once again. My question, however, isn’t about these frightened people who are turning to God in time of trouble. My question is about Christians. In this new surge of spirituality, what is the Church offering? What are the Christians doing in the foxholes?

The public responses have been embarrassing at best. One Christian leader has stated that America got what it deserved. This is a running theme in many churches. We are a decadent country, and God is judging America. Others are backpedaling. “God didn’t have anything to do with this,” they assure us. “God is a gentleman.” Some religious leaders are on a similar bandwagon. “This isn’t God’s fault – it’s the fault of Man’s Free Will.” Private responses have been similar. Christians have responded with everything from “Kill ‘em all and let God sort it out” to “God loves everyone and would never allow this to occur.” So, with this gaping national wound bleeding from our televisions and a mad rush for support and answers to the best place to find support and answers – the Church – all we have to offer is either an angry God who smites His enemies or an uninvolved God who was just as appalled as we were and wishes He could have done something about it.

What ever happened to the God of the Bible? This God seems to be a different sort of God than the one of which we’re hearing from Christians. This is what God says about Himself in the words of Scripture:

Do you not know? Have you not heard? Has it not been declared to you from the beginning? Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth? It is He who sits above the vault of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers, who stretches out the heavens like a curtain and spreads them out like a tent to dwell in. He it is who reduces rulers to nothing, who makes the judges of the earth meaningless. Scarcely have they been planted, scarcely have they been sown, scarcely has their stock taken root in the earth, but He merely blows on them, and they wither, and the storm carries them away like stubble. "To whom then will you liken Me that I should be his equal?" says the Holy One (Isa. 40:21-25).

Have you not heard? Long ago I did it, from ancient times I planned it. Now I have brought it to pass, that you should turn fortified cities into ruinous heaps. Therefore their inhabitants were short of strength, they were dismayed and put to shame; they were as the vegetation of the field and as the green herb, as grass on the housetops is scorched before it is grown up (Isa. 37:26-27).

I am the LORD, and there is no other, the One forming light and creating darkness, causing well-being and creating calamity; I am the LORD who does all these (Isa. 45:6-7).

These are words from Isaiah, but they are God speaking about Himself. He says that from His viewpoint human beings are “like grasshoppers”. He says that He “reduces rulers to nothing”. He says that He destroys their crops. He says that He plans to destroy their fortified cities, and He brings it to pass. In Isaiah 45, God Himself declares that He creates calamity. This is the image God is presenting concerning Himself.

Does God cause bad things? It is important, in answering the question, that we understand that God does not cause sin. Very clearly, “God cannot be tempted by evil, and He Himself does not tempt anyone.” (James 1:13) But don’t be deceived into believing that God does not cause unpleasant events. He says He creates calamity. And even in the sin of Man, God is not out of control. He doesn’t cause evil, but He surely ordains it. Our clearest proof is our most blessed event, the death of Christ. No sin was more heinous than Judas Iscariot’s betrayal of Christ. Of this event, Jesus said, “For indeed, the Son of Man is going as it has been determined; but woe to that man by whom He is betrayed!" (Luke 22:22) In other words, God planned for Judas to do what Judas would do. It was foreordained. Judas still bore the responsibility of his choice (“Woe to that man by whom He is betrayed!"), but his sin did not mean a deviation from God’s plan.

Do not be deceived. God is sovereign. He plans the events that bring us happiness. He plans the events that bring us sorrow. It is all in His hand, and it is good.

Solomon writes on the same topic in Ecclesiastes.

Consider the work of God, for who is able to straighten what He has bent? In the day of prosperity be happy, but in the day of adversity consider -- God has made the one as well as the other so that man may not discover anything that will be after him (Eccl. 7:13-14).

Solomon claims that God has made both the day of prosperity and the day of adversity. He claims that God does it for a reason.

Interestingly, throughout Scripture we see people who understand this and accept it. Job says, “The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away. Blessed be the Name of the Lord” (Job 1:21). We would look puzzled at Job. “The Lord took away? And you say He is to be blessed?” But God’s perspective on Job’s comment is “Through all this Job did not sin” (Job 1:22). We see the same concept from Sarah in Genesis. She tells her husband, “The Lord has made me barren” (Gen. 16:2). Clearly Sarah is not happy about it, but there are two features present that we lack today. First is the absolute certainty that God is in charge. It wasn’t “a fluke of nature” or “a string of bad luck”. The Lord did it. The second is that, while she may not have liked the condition, she accepted it and worked with it rather than complaining. She worked in the wrong direction, but to her it was not “unfair” of God to do what He had done. To her, God had the perfect right to do what He would do, and He did.

This God is a different God from is being offered to many within the Church today. This God is a God who is intimately involved in everyday existence. This God doesn’t retreat from saying “I am the One creating calamity.” Instead we read that God “works all things after the counsel of His will” (Eph. 1:11). David rejoiced in the knowledge that God had ordained all his days (Psa. 139:16).

Consider Daniel’s viewpoint of his God:

The Lord gave Jehoiakim king of Judah into his hand, along with some of the vessels of the house of God; and he brought them to the land of Shinar, to the house of his god, and he brought the vessels into the treasury of his god (Dan. 1:2).

This is a key example of God at work. Today’s Christian would say “God does not do bad things; these things are caused by Man’s sinful Free Will.” The events described in Daniel are as bad as they come. Judah was overrun and sent into captivity. The Temple was overrun and its holy vessels were put to profane use in a pagan temple. It doesn’t get any worse. But Daniel starts with the very clear statement as to who was in charge in all of this. “The Lord gave” them over. It wasn’t pleasant, and it wasn’t pretty, but this same Daniel who believed that God had actually given His people into captivity and His holy vessels into pagan use still stood firm in his faith, as evidenced by the rest of the book of Daniel. In Daniel’s view, God Himself brought all this to pass, and in Daniel’s view God was allowed to do so – it was “fair”.

Consider Jeremiah’s viewpoint of his God:

He has filled me with bitterness, He has made me drunk with wormwood. And He has broken my teeth with gravel; He has made me cower in the dust. And my soul has been rejected from peace; I have forgotten happiness. So I say, "My strength has perished, and so has my hope from the LORD."

Remember my affliction and my wandering, the wormwood and bitterness. Surely my soul remembers and is bowed down within me. This I recall to my mind, therefore I have hope. The Lord's lovingkindnesses indeed never cease, for His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is Thy faithfulness. "The LORD is my portion," says my soul, "Therefore I have hope in Him." The LORD is good to those who wait for Him, to the person who seeks Him. It is good that he waits silently for the salvation of the LORD. It is good for a man that he should bear the yoke in his youth (Lam. 3:15-27).

Here we have Jeremiah standing in the ruins of his homeland. There is no doubt that Jeremiah is unhappy. Faith in God’s sovereignty does not necessarily mean bliss. He says he has no peace. He says that he has even lost hope. Then something occurs to him that renews his hope. What is that? “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases. His mercies never come to an end. They are new every morning. Great is Thy faithfulness.” We know these words. They’re in our songs. But Jeremiah lived them. He understood that nothing around him brought comfort; nothing around him gave reason for hope that circumstances would improve. His single source of hope was in the simple, sure confidence that God was God. While we clamor for joy or peace or blessing, Jeremiah said, “I’ve lost all that . . . but God is good enough.” Paul says the same thing. “I count all things as loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ.” (Phil. 3:8) Knowing God is enough.

Consider Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego’s viewpoint of their God:

Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego answered and said to the king, "O Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to give you an answer concerning this matter. If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the furnace of blazing fire; and He will deliver us out of your hand, O king. But even if He does not, let it be known to you, O king, that we are not going to serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up" (Dan. 3:16-18).

These three men stood on the brink of disaster. They were about to suffer a horrible death. So hot was the fire they were to face that it killed those who threw them into it. They spoke confidently, as we would have our heroes do. “Our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the furnace of blazing fire.” “You tell them, guys,” we cheer. “God can deliver you. Trust in Him.” We’re behind them. But they aren’t lost in a false sense of “God only wants us to be comfortable”. They recognize that this may not be His plan. “Even if He does not . . . we are not going to serve your gods.” Here we would typically draw the line. If God, in our estimation, is going to be fair to these guys, He must reward their faithfulness to Him by saving them. To do otherwise would not be right. Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego disagree. To them, God decides who lives and who dies, and God is just in doing so. His saving them from the fire is not the expected result of their faith. To them, this is right. Their God is the One who decides. Their God is right in what He decides.

This is not the vengeful God being portrayed on one end, the “hands off” God in the middle, or the “He loves us too much” God being offered on the other end. This is the God who is intimately involved in the everyday existence of human beings. This is the sovereign, omnipotent, omniscient God who brings both affliction and comfort, justice and mercy. This God answers our cries of “That’s not fair!” with the simple retort, “Who are you, O man, who answers back to God?” (Rom. 9:20) This God grants us suffering (Phil. 1:29). This is the God who leads us through the valley of the shadow of death. There may be painful and frightening things in this valley, but “I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me.” This is the sovereign Lord who “comforts us in all our afflictions” (2 Cor. 1:4) and provides a peace that passes understanding (Phil. 4:7) by never leaving or forsaking us (Heb. 13:5). We don’t have confidence in God because He makes us comfortable. We have confidence in God because He is God, because He is sovereign, and because He will always do what is best.

We have attempted to “fill in the blanks” where God is concerned, and we have failed badly. When some in Jesus’ day tried to do that, Jesus responded accordingly:

Now on the same occasion there were some present who reported to Him about the Galileans, whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. And He answered and said to them, "Do you suppose that these Galileans were greater sinners than all other Galileans, because they suffered this fate? I tell you, no, but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. Or do you suppose that those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them, were worse culprits than all the men who live in Jerusalem? I tell you, no, but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish" (Luke 13:1-5).

Jesus’ disciples made the same mistake with the man born blind.

His disciples asked Him, saying, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he should be born blind?" Jesus answered, "It was neither that this man sinned, nor his parents; but it was in order that the works of God might be displayed in him” (John 9:2 3).

In both cases, people grossly misjudged the circumstances. As Job’s “friends” who gathered to inform him that his suffering was the result of his sin, these assumed that bad things do not happen to good people. The premise is “If something bad happens to you, it’s because you did something wrong.” Jesus disagrees. “Do you suppose that these Galileans were greater sinners than all other Galileans, because they suffered this fate?” Jesus makes two clear points. First, not all unhappy events are punishment from God. Second, we all deserve unhappy events. We have tricked ourselves into believing that we deserve pleasant circumstances, and God is unfair or angry if we don’t get them. What we have missed is that we deserve Hell, and any pleasant event in life is an act of sheer grace on God’s part.

In fact, Jesus holds that unpleasant events can actually be God’s plan, “in order that the works of God might be displayed.” From the perspective of our Lord Jesus, our dire circumstances are God’s opportunity to shine, to display His power, to show His strength. God told Paul, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness" (2 Cor. 12:9). We view our pain and suffering as things to escape. God views them as opportunities for Him to declare His glory.

Did God judge America? Perhaps. Or did He merely withdraw His hand of protection? Could be. But it is folly to try to explain God’s intent in the events of September 11 without a specific word from God. It is foolish to assume, for instance, that they are God’s judgments and chastening for specific sins. Instead, we need to recognize that every bad thing that happens is part of God’s curse upon humanity for our rebellion against Him in our father Adam. We dwell in a cursed world. So we should not jump to the conclusion that all bad things that happen are God’s acts of retribution for specific sinful actions. Jesus’ teaching in Luke 13:1-5 makes this clear. Every evil that befalls us beckons us to return to God Himself. We need to flee the anemic God offered by our therapeutic culture who loves everybody without discrimination. We need to flee the irate God of the other view that capriciously smites His enemies with wild abandon. The God we need is the God of Daniel, who sovereignly ordains calamity for good purposes. The God we need is the God of Jeremiah who removes tranquility while remaining faithful. The God we need is the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who may not meet our expectations of what we might like, but is certainly to be trusted to perform what is best. We need to see, with Joseph, that “you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good” (Gen. 50:20). This God is not a powerless god who cannot intervene, nor is He a “gentleman” who does not intervene. He is not subject to Man’s Free Will nor given to fits of temper. He is the LORD God Almighty (Rev. 4:8), the King of kings and Lord of lords (Rev. 17:14), the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end (Rev. 22:13). He is God of all, over all, through all, and in all (Eph. 4:5), for Whom and through Whom are all things (Heb. 2:10).

It is only in that sovereign, good, faithful God that we can find a peace that passes understanding in times of harsh crisis, and it is only that God that we can offer to the hurting world around us. Any other God is not God at all, but a caricature of the True God – an idol carved by human hands.