Is God Good?

The Lord spoke to Moses,“Execute vengeance for the Israelites against the Midianites. After that, you will be gathered to your people… They waged war against Midian, as the Lord had commanded Moses, and killed every male.
Numbers 31:1-2, 7 

When evangelizing, a common argument that I hear against Christianity is how I could anyone serve a God who would command His people to violently slaughter and kill another people group. In their minds, there is no justification for the taking of another person’s life and because there are several cases for when God does this, it is sufficient evidence that God is not good. There are plenty of ways to respond to this question, and depending on your context some will be more effective than others. For example, for those who condone of abortions the table could be turned on them very easily. But a far more gospel-centered approach is come to an agreeance on a standard for morality. Once there, you can work through whether or not they have met that standard and, with God being a perfect being and who is the just judge, ask them to consider they would stand against the judge. Would they be deemed innocent or guilty?

We all will stand guilty before a just and holy God and all deserve Hell. But not to avoid the question, why would God, who is just and the standard for perfection, allow such terrible violence? We must first consider the fact that God’s ways are not our ways. He is above us and knows all things, past, present, and future. And we must trust Him, especially in times when we do not fully understand what He is doing. Secondly, we must remember that no one is innocent. We all have sinned, regardless or age, gender, or place of birth, we all deserve death. And so, while difficult, if the author of life chooses to no longer extend mercy and grace to a person or people group, He may do so.

Consider in this passage, the Midianite people were not innocent. They were not blameless in the sight of God. In fact, we read concerning them, “Yet they are the ones who, at Balaam’s advice, incited the Israelites to unfaithfulness against the LORD in the Peor incident” (Num 31:16). This was a people group who seduced the people of God to commit acts of sexual immorality and idolatry earlier in the book of Numbers (Ch 25).

Ultimately, this is a difficult issue to deal with but one that we must come at with the understanding that we are not God. He does not owe anybody anything but desires our good and our salvation (2 Peter 3:8-10). All that God does is good and right, even though His ways may be a mystery to us at times. But even though it may be a mystery to us, this does not mean that He is not wholly holy and just. If anything, it ought to convict our hearts for more Gospel opportunities so that others may find eternal life.

Grace and Peace,
Pastor Alex

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