That’s a common question out there in the world today, but what is the Biblical answer?
Well, to put it simply, they don’t! Bad things do not happen to good people, since good people do not exist.
“There is none righteous, no not one. There is none who does good, no not one. For there is not a just man earth who does good and does not sin” (Romans 3:10,12 & Ecclesiastes 7:20).
A more in depth explanation is required, though, if we are going to try to explain this to new believers or the unsaved. We must remember what we are told in James 2:10, “For whosoever shall keep the whole law, but stumble in one point, he is guilty of all.” If the Ten Commandments were ten links of a chain, only one would need to be broken to fall, not all ten. Whether we had broken one link, or ten, or any number in between, the end result would be the same.
Because of our sin, we are all “out of bounds”, and just like a referee at a sporting event doesn’t change his ruling based on how far out of bounds a player goes, (the distance is irrelevant), God doesn’t draw the line at a certain amount of sin.
“All have sinned” (Romans 3:23) and “the soul who sins shall die” (Ezekiel 18:4) because “the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23).
Let’s pretend that while a Christian man was away from home faithfully preaching the gospel and doing the Lord’s work, another man breaks into his home and violently murders his entire family. The Christian man may be tempted to ask God why He did not stop this from happening.
Indeed, many of us might ask that as well.
However, the truth is that sin is sin. Where would we have God draw the line? Should He only stop every murder? What about every rape? What would it be like if He stopped every lie and every impure thought? And how exactly would we want God to stop these sins?
Should He simply kill the would-be violator, or just force them not to sin?
Obviously, if He prevented things according to His holy nature, we would either have to all be robots with no free will whatsoever, or we would have all been dead a long time ago, and humanity as a whole would have perished.
When compared to what God’s perfect will is, as revealed in Scripture, most of the things that happen down here He does not approve of, nor does He want them to occur. Yet, because He desires a relationship with us based on love, He must allow us to choose, since love is a choice.
He cannot force love, nor can anyone else.
We all have the freedom to choose, but we would do well to remember that with such freedom comes not only the freedom to choose poorly, but also the freedom to choose wrong as well.
We must furthermore keep in mind that although God does not like or approve of much of what happens here on earth, He is powerful enough to work all things “together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose” (Romans 8:28).
No matter how unfortunate or tragic a situation or event may be, for the believer, there remains hope and promise. This also answers another popular question, “Why is there so much evil and suffering in the world?”
Atheists and others try so use such questions to rule out the possibility of a real, loving God existing. Though it may be simple to explain and yet hard for some to grasp, it’s because of how deeply God loves us that we live in this fallen, cursed world full of sin and woe.
Generations of us abusing our freedoms have created these situations that we are now in, and only Jesus can ever offer us a lasting solution.
Let’s make sure they know why He came!
2+2=4
Thanks, @narrowminded
