Why God Allows Evil to Continue, A Personal Story

By - William J. Senn, National Capital Bible Church

When I was witness to an avoidable historical tragedy, near to my heart, it damaged my prayer life for time. I thought to myself: why were my own prayers, and the prayers of a great multitude, not answered? Why did the Lord allow such evil to triumph?  

Initially, I came up with anemic answers like “Perhaps only a handful of the ‘great multitude’ prayed in fellowship.”  While that may have been true, I’ve concluded there may have been a greater reason. Going back to Creation, I thought to myself, “If God told Adam and Eve to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth, then He planned to have some ultimate number of souls in His eternal kingdom. For the sake of argument, let’s say that goal was 10 billion souls. Then the Fall occurred and the dilemma of what to do about it. God could either straightaway cast Adam and Eve into the Lake of Fire, or He could find a solution to achieve His goal. 

As we know, the solution was to curse Creation and in the fullness of time to bring His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, into the world to die on the cross for every sin - past, present, and future. Creation had to be cursed so that Jesus could endure every hardship and every temptation that mankind would ever face, without sin, to be qualified to be our Savior. 

Now we also know that God “is willing that none should perish, but that all should come to repentance.” From these truths I have concluded that the sovereignty, omnipotence, and omniscience of God are so directing history that, when His goal of 10 billion believers has been reached, it will have been accomplished with the absolute minimum of casualties going into the Lake of Fire. I, therefore, believe that God is so orchestrating every hardship, every suffering, every “unanswered” prayer, and every evil to accomplish that ultimate goal. So, if we think about all the “what ifs” in history that didn’t happen, had God permitted any of them to occur, those “what ifs” would have in some way resulted in additional souls not believing and going to the Lake of Fire.  

From all these things I take comfort when I see occurring some new evil or hardship or disappointment or prayer that appears to go unanswered. I know it’s somehow resulting in one more soul being saved in a way that I can’t and won’t understand until eternity. God is perfectly in control and using it to accomplish His goal. 

This post was written by William Senn of National Capital Bible Church. If you have questions about this post or Christianity in general, please contact us today!