“Enduring Evil”

Tuesday, April 24, 2012

     Where was God during the Holocaust?  Why do we teach our children to pray and tell them prayers will be answered when thousands of children prayed every day during this horrible time without an answer?

Sincerely,
Aghast

Dear Aghast,

When God created the universe, He made everything good (Gen 1:31).  The world didn’t have disease, thorns, suffering, and all the other problems we see today.  Originally, Adam and Eve lived in the perfect paradise of the Garden of Eden (Gen 2:8).  It is only after Adam and Eve were cast from the Garden because of their sin that all the problems we see today began. All suffering is caused by mankind and sin.

When God made the world, He made it to be good – it was sin that destroyed that perfect vision.  All wickedness and evil brings pain to God and grieves Him and He will only endure it for so long.  In Noah’s day, God saw all the violence that was in the world and it made Him deeply sad (Gen 6:5-6).  God gives mankind the freedom to make our own choices, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t pain Him to see the evil upon this earth.  God tells us that the only reason He endures it is because He is longsuffering and desiring to give as many people as possible the chance to repent and turn to Him (2 Pet 3:9).

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