Weekly Devotional 2-2-15 The Answer
On his recent trip in Manila, a little girl asked Pope Benedict a pretty simple question. “Why does God allow children to get involved in drugs and prostitution, why does God allow these things to happen to us? Children are innocent and not guilty of anything.” The Pope answered; “She is the only one who has put forward a question for which there is no answer and she was not even able to express it in words but rather in tears.”
Is there really no answer to such a question? Yes, there is an answer to her question, it is found in inherent sin and the issuant depravity of man. The apostle Paul informs us sin entered the world through Adam, mans federal head (Romans 5:12), and the universality of it was (is) reflected in the spiritual and physical death of all persons. Adam’s sin wrought the moral ruin of the human race. Moral ruin opened the door to “19adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, 20idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, 21envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and etc.” (Galatians 5:19-21 NKJV). Many times, the exercise of these things are against children.
God certainly could intervene and protect children from drugs and prostitution and many other things that result from the above mentioned things, but in most situations He does not. While this is hard to accept, it is borne out by the facts; children do suffer from these things. But to be remembered God has said “8 For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways,” says the LORD (See Isaiah 55:8). In context God was using Judah’s captivity and sufferings to bring him back to Himself (See Isaiah chapters 54-55). At the time Judah didn’t understand, but God was creating in them a longing for freedom and a return to their homeland. Like Judah, we just don’t know God’s purposes in many things, especially the hurt of children, but we must believe that He has not turned His back on them; He is aware and is involved.
Even in man’s lack of true morality God has influenced them (us) to pass laws for the protection of children and society. But, said laws do nothing to change the inward man, the seat of depravity. Only His Spirit can accomplish such a change, and He has sent His Spirit into the world to accomplish that very thing. He convicts man of sin, convinces him that he needs a Savior and testifies that Jesus was (is) that Savior. His convicting and convincing overcomes the spiritual darkness that possesses man and brings him into the light of spiritual understanding and commitment. When this happens in a person’s life, said person is changed inwardly and he (or she) will no longer live according to the dictates of his (her) old nature. They (we) will no longer abuse children, or tolerate it by others. God therefore, is at work.
Any and all abuse of children should be abhorrent, but it is not necessary so in the unregenerate, the person who is outside of Christ. Until the totality of man comes into a right relationship with God, many will continue to abuse them in ways that are unimaginable. If it were possible for man to overcome this, the first step would be for him to agree with God that there is something terribly wrong with man; that he was (is) born with a nature that is at enmity (at strife) with God. Because of inherent sin man is a sinner and does those things are governed by that nature, a depraved nature. It is only by the grace of God and the constraints of the Holy Spirit that man is held in check. Apart from God’s grace and the restraining power of the Holy Spirit there would be no end to the evilness of man.
Thank God though; our present experience of life is not the end of things. He has prepared a new earth that will be populated by those, who during their life, came to Him in faith. Children will be included in their number. In the mean time, you and I have a responsibility toward our children. We are called to turn persons to God by proclaiming the good news that Jesus Christ is the propitiation for mans sin and that he can gain a new nature, a nature that is bent toward pleasing God, not self.
stevelampman@comcast.net stevelampman.com
Transforming Power, The Work of God on Behalf of Man
www.gbchurch.us