If God is all-knowing why would He allow people to be born that He ultimately knows are going to end up in Hell?
Acts 17:25 (NASB) Nor is He served by human hands, as though He needed anything, since He Himself gives to all people life and breath and all things.
Sometimes people make the mistake of assuming the why of creation. This is because they misunderstand or are not fully convinced of what true love is all about. True love is never about self, even for God. The picture of love we get from 1 Corinthians 13 is one of self-sacrifice and focus elsewhere. Verse 5 really brings it out by stating, “Love does not seek its own.” In other words, true love is always focused elsewhere.
I say that because it lays the understanding for what I’m about to tell you. People assume God created us because He wanted or needed us. This is a wrong assumption, one that would not be based in love. Since He is love’s author, He knows it better than anyone. God created us because it was good for us to exist. Ask most people if they are happy to exist and they would say yes. Now, some may answer and say no, but if they are still living, then they want to be alive. Most people live a life that indicates they want to partake of it, howbeit they desire that it is the way they want it. In seeking to exist well, by nature we are declaring that existing is beneficial for us.
We have to understand, there was nothing lacking in God’s existence as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. They had perfect communion with each other for eternity. Their existence did not need ours for anything at all. It was better for us to exist than not to. To exist in love we had to be created in such a way that we could choose how we live. Again, basic human instinct tells us that to be forced to live in such a way is not right. The idea of hell is also something many people mix up. Hell does not exist because God wills for any kind of being to be there. Hell exists for those that don’t want God. Let me explain.
Psalms 34:8 (NASB) says, “O taste and see that the LORD is good; how blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him!” God is the embodiment of goodness. IT DOES NOT EXIST WITHOUT HIM! Hell is not as much about punishment as it is absence. Absence of God, or willful rejection of Him, is hell. It is not that there are options. Even kind-of good is still experiencing God. If one rejects God, there is no where else for them to be, no good exists because only God is good. Part of what God does here is give many proofs to His goodness so people will embrace Him. But here’s the problem; people love to sin. John 3:19 tells us this.
Sin, its very nature, is complete separation from good, which is God. When a person embraces bad, by default they reject good. This seems to be a concept so many struggle with yet its truth remains. How this problem is alleviated is like this: Jesus came to cover those sins, and obedience teaches us the truth about avoiding it. Yet people love their sin. Some other scriptures that speak to this are Proverbs 2:14 & 14:12, Romans 1:32, and 2 Timothy 2:3-4.
So God created us because it was better for us to exist than not to, He gave us free will because love gives choice, He gave us instruction on how to be right and avoid death, He gave His Son to overcome death because we didn’t listen, He gave us more instruction on living right, then He gave us His Holy Spirit to be with us to help. He gave us a Bible, and the ministry offices, the church of believers, and even angels to ensure we get where we need to be. God created us in the most perfect way possible, gave us every ability and reason to be right, and yet man still rejects Him. That some choose to turn away does not negate the goodness of being able to exist.
It’s easy to think wrong about the way all things work because there is a devil who would love to confuse us. One of the ways he does this is by telling us that somehow God is unfair to so many. That is a complete distortion of the truth. Creation is good because God said it is, if for no other reason. He made it good but then this very creation chose to leave its goodness. This fact it doesn’t mean the existence of creation is bad, just that its choices are.
People don’t accidentally end up in hell, they choose to go. Be assured that God grants every man sufficient opportunity to choose right. Whether they do or not does not speak to the idea of it being good that they were here, just to the idea that they didn’t embrace it.
Be Blessed,
Pastor Jeff
