One question that this unconverted world may ask:
Why, if there is a God, does God allow wars and
all this suffering and anguish? Why such
terrifying world conditions as we face now?
Some people may think: If God is good, if God is
love, if God is merciful, he would not want people
to suffer like they do on this earth, would he?
And, if God is Almighty, if he has all power, he
could stop it. He could prevent it. Then, why
doesn’t he? Let’s understand!
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The Church of God New World Ministries wants to
make plain to you what you may have never heard or
thought of before. The God we believe in is the
God who created all things, He is the Creator of
not only matter, but also of force, of energy, of
all the laws that exist: the laws of chemistry,
the laws of physics, spiritual laws as well as
physical laws to regulate man’s life and man
’s happiness.
The Great God created man in his image and for a
purpose that almost no one seems to understand.
Did you ever stop to think and wonder why you
were born? What is this purpose that God is
working out here on this planet.
In Genesis 1, beginning with the 24th verse, God
said: “Let the earth bring forth the living
creature after his kind. “That is, the
little kitten grows up in the image of its parent
cat, the same form, the same shape. And now, the
next verse: “And God said, let us make man
in our image, after our likeness.” In other
words, after our form, our shape, our image. God
is reproducing himself! God has endowed man with
powers that no animal has.
An animal can’t design, originate, plan and
execute, using free volition, and carry out or
execute what it has thought out and designed and
planned. A bird builds a nest. Gophers dig holes.
Beavers build dams. But did you ever realize that
one beaver dam is like another? And that they
have been the same from the beginning? Every bird
builds she same kind of nest that its kind of
birds have always built.
We have been given some of the powers of God.
Thank God, he limited our powers. Look at how we
’ve misused what God has given us, and
think what we might have done if God had given us
more power.
The next point that we want you to realize is
this: The first chapter of Genesis is telling us
only of a material, physical creation, not a
spiritual creation. Man is the clay model. God
merely made the clay model to begin fashioning
something greater than he has in mind. In Genesis
2:7 we learn of what God made man. God is Spirit.
But he did not make man out of spirit. Rather,
“The Lord God formed from the dust of the
ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath
of life { the word breath comes from the same
Hebrew word that refers to the breath in the
nostrils of animals }; and man became a living
soul.” It does not say that man has a soul,
but man is a soul.
We are the clay model. God is the Great Potter. So
we read in Isaiah 64: 8: “But now, O Lord,
thou are our father, we are the clay, and thou
our potter, and we all are the work of thy hand.
”
A Master Potter (or craftsman) uses clay of a
certain thickness and weight. The clay has to be
plastic, so he can move it and bend it. The clay
has to give and move in his hands. If it is too
stiff, he cannot use it, if it is too thin, he
cannot do anything with it. It had to be just
right. That’s the way we have to be:
plastic-- yielding in the hands of God, just as
clay yielded in the Master Potter’s hands.
God made us free moral agents. And God made us so
that we can resist, we can stiffen up and harden
up against him, or we can accept him and we can
yield. God made us so that we must choose on that
point. God is not going to do anything with us if
we resist. So, then, what are we? We are an
unfinished piece of God’s workmanship!
Creation was not completed in the time of the
garden of Eden and the creation of Adam and Eve.
It only began there. That was the material, the
physical creation. God was, then, only beginning
his real creation, which is to be a spiritual
creation. He is creating something spiritual out
of man who has been made mortal, out of the dust
of the ground
We were born, all of us, from Adam. Adam was not
in the spiritual image of God, as most people
seem to think he was. He lacked God’s
perfect spiritual character. He was not made of
the same substance as God. Adam was made of the
dust of the ground but, God is Spirit.
So far as composition is concerned, we have only
been bearing the physical image, not the
spiritual. But we are in the form and shape of
God. We can receive his spirit, his character and
bear his image, spiritually. God is reproducing
himself! I wonder if you can begin to realize
this wonderful truth.
Now, what is God? God is perfect, spiritual
character. That’s what he is. God has all
power, but God is, perfect, spiritual character.
Character cannot be automatically created by
fiat. Neither can character be inherited from
father or mother to child.
What is perfect character? Character, perfect
character, is the ability of a separate entity to
come, FIRST, to the knowledge of the truth, and of
the right as opposed to the wrong; and SECONDLY,
to make the decision to choose the right instead
of the wrong; and THIRDLY, to exercise the will
and the self-discipline to do the right instead
of the wrong. That is perfect character.
God has perfect character. God has all knowledge.
God always chooses the right. God never does
wrong. We were put here to build character until
we become like God. Animals have instinct, but
animals do not develop righteous character.
Character involves such characteristics as love,
patience, humility, tolerance, mercy, wisdom,
initiative and right doing through free choice.
So, God of necessity, made man the clay model. He
made man a free moral agent, so that man can make
his own decisions. God has decreed that we must
decide. He does not force us to obey him or come
under his government.
There could be no character development any other
way. To develop perfect character in man God had
to allow man to do wrong. Now, get that! To
fulfill his purpose, God has to allow man to be
able to do wrong. Character must be developed by
experience. It can’t be created
automatically. Experience requires time: and so
God set apart a total of 7,000 years to carry
out, his purpose. The first 6,000 yrs. As a type
of the six days of material creation, are for man
’s way of going contrary to God. Then there
is going to be a 1,000 year day of spiritual rest,
as a type of the weekly Sabbath, when Jesus
Christ is coming to rule this earth God’s
way and rule it with a rod of iron. The whole
world will be full of the knowledge of the Eternal
God.
God’s law or way is love. Love is always
away from self, not toward self-- never lust or
anything of that sort. The opposite way is lust
and greed, that’s directed toward self--
vanity! And it leads to the system in this world,
competition and strife. Yes, the getting way, the
accumulating, the taking way. AND THAT WAY IS THE
CAUSE OF WARS!
Everything is competition in this world.
Everything is carried along on the selfish, the
getting, greed and vanity basis. To prevent the
evils of competition and wars today, God would
have to cram his religion down our throats. Our
way, the violation of the law of God, the law of
love, is causing wars, human anguish and human
suffering. God had to allow it (to let us have
our own way) in order to fulfill his purpose of
creating holy character.
There wouldn’t be any free moral agency;
there wouldn’t be any character development
and God’s purpose could never be fulfilled.
That’s why God allow wars, and that’s
why God allows suffering. To prevent it would be
to prevent the very purpose that God’s is
working out here below.
Do you know that man learns by suffering? Did you
ever hear of anyone learning that the stove was
hot by putting his finger on it? We do learn by
experience. And do you know that Jesus Christ
learned by experience? Turn to Hebrews 5:8-9,
“Though he were a Son, yet learned he
obedience by the things which he suffered; and
being made perfect, he became the author of
eternal salvation unto all them that obey him.
”
Experience develops character, either good or
bad. If we’re going to have good character
it comes through experience. If we develop bad
character, and man has done that, God provided a
solution for that too, because “God so loved
the world, that he gave his only begotten Son
” that we can repent. We can come to him
and have all of our sins forgiven. We can be
given a new and a clean start, receive God’s
Spirit, and let the power of God come into us and
clean us up and make us what we ought to be.
Job understood this. Turn to Job 14:14: “If
a man die, shall he live again? All the days
{answered Job} of my appointed time will I wait,
till my change come.” He was speaking of a
resurrection when he was going to be changed.
“Thou shalt call, and I will answer thee.
” And, do you know that Jesus said, “
The hour is coming, in the which all that are in
the graves shall hear his voice, and shall come
forth; they that have done good unto the
resurrection of life” ( John 5:28-29).
Job said: “Thou shalt call, and I will
answer thee.” Here is the point we want you
to notice,” thou wilt have a desire to the
work of thine hands”, the last part of verse
15. In calling him from the grave in a
resurrection, Job said, God will have a desire to
the work of his hands. Job knew that he was an
unfinished piece of God’s workmanship. Yes,
man is the work of God’s hands.
Now notice Ephesians 2:10: “For we are his
workmanship.” We , of course, means
Christians in the New Testament language -
“We are his workmanship, created in Christ
Jesus unto good works { not very many people
believe that today }, which God hath before
ordained that we should walk in them.” Yes,
in good works. That’s in the New Testament.
The spiritual creation is still going on today.
That’s the purpose of your life, to learn
that very lesson. To repent of your wrong ways,
your sins, to accept Christ as your Savior, and to
start on the way that is the way of character,
the way of good, righteous, Holy, spiritual
character, the way of God. And that you can
become the very born Son of God, with God’s
perfect character in you.
Only those who overcome and grow in this life,
after we do repent, and after we are reconciled to
God through Jesus Christ, and after we have
received the Holy Spirit and are walking by his
Spirit, will reign with Jesus Christ over the
nations. “He that overcometh {said Jesus},
and keepeth my works unto the end, to him will I
give power over the nations: and he shall rule
them with a rod of iron” ( Rev.2:26-27).
And then in Revelation 3:21: “To him that
overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my
throne.” He is going to rule the entire
world, and we, if we qualify, are going to rule
with him. We’re going to be kings and
priests with him. He was the firstborn of many
brethren. You can be one of those brethren. As
kings and priests you will be able to teach the
nations the horrible results of war. They will
beat their swords into plowshares and not learn
war anymore. May God speed that day.
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