Why does God let evil happen?

If we turn to His governmental ways with men, both with individuals and nations, as publicly exercised, we fail to learn our lesson if we do not realize that we are studying ways that proclaim the sovereign Ruler of the universe to be in a pre-eminent sense a moral Being. His moral nature is plainly manifested in His moral government, but how inscrutable are these ways! How past finding out (Rom. 11:33)! To our finite minds there are contradictions which seem irreconcilable. The mystery of it is to us impenetrable. He acts sovereignly, does His own will, and "giveth not account of any of His matters" (Job 33:13). We wonder at His silence when evil insolently lifts up its head. We tremble in the presence of His punishments of it. We see Him putting limits to the operation of evil, and ask, Why then does He permit it at all? If, on the one hand, God "doeth according to His will in the army of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth, and none can stay His hand, or say unto Him, What doest Thou?" (Dan. 4:35); and, on the other hand, tolerates sin, allows it to go on unrebuked, at times seems to be indifferent to it and exposes Himself to the charge of seeming acquiescence in it; where is the line of demarcation between His abhorrence and His sufferance of it?

Yes, the mystery of God's permission of evil remains. The mystery of His will is another thing, revealed now, not then, and only to be manifested at the coming of the Lord, when all things shall be gathered in one under His Headship. (Eph. 1:9-10) It is not yet the time to order all as the expression of His will, though He is the maker and sovereign disposer of all. Undoubtedly experience has its place, as each has his own measure of discrimination which should profit by length of days; but there are no laws discoverable or possible to bind God, in whom alone is perfect wisdom and power in providence. There are laws which He has imprinted on all above our eyes and below our feet, and around us; but the highest, truest law of all, if law it should be called, is that God is free, not bound, to act, free to act as and when He will. So He acts with man as with the elements, with the more and the less wicked, with counsellors, and judges, and kings, with priests, and heroes, and senators, with whole nations, reduced or aggrandized, with their chiefs infatuated to utter ruin. God is sovereign.

Of the supremacy of God in His own universe there can be no question in the mind of any one who has been brought out of his native darkness into the light of the revelation which has come to us in the person of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. He controls the elements of evil that are found there, yea, even uses them for the effectuation of the purposes of His love, and guides with a skilful and omnipotent hand into the various channels which lead to the one grand, glorious result, the eternal glory of His great, illustrious name and the supreme blessedness of all who submit themselves to His good and gracious decrees. If Satan has fallen, if spirits have rebelled against His authority, if man has been overthrown by the power of evil and lies with all his descendants under death, sin, and the power of the devil; if His laws have been broken, His words despised, His servants murdered, His beloved Son persecuted, rejected, cast out, mocked, nailed to a gibbet, and if His Holy Spirit has been resisted, and if there has been no intervention on His part to stop or hinder such wicked doings, it was simply because these things prepared the way for the fulfilment of the grand designs which He had in view before the world was. We know that God is love. What rest and peace and joy this knowledge brings into the heart that has been casting about in vain for some foundation in this morass of iniquity, upon which to place the foot of faith knowing that it is unshakable.

The judgment in Genesis 3 was upon Satan, though it was there for Adam to lay hold of. There was no promise to the fallen Adam, no promise to man in sin any more than innocent. Evil came in by the devil; with man, by temptation. God was over it: this is the reason why He suffered evil and the fall - in view of a greater good to come in. My answer to him who asks it is, "why, you foolish man, if you had not been a sinner, you would not have had Christ at all." And this is a true answer too, because it was in God's counsels to introduce and reveal Christ in glory ultimately.

But again we ask, Why did God leave moral evil a possibility? Or, in other words, why permit the entrance of sin? Could He not have created a being, which could not fall? One who could only do what was good and right?

The answer is plain. Because, if He would create a glorious creature — man, after His own image, and in His likeness, free to choose either good or evil, and not a creature governed by a mere chain of instinct, as the birds and beasts around him — He must leave the entrance to him of evil, a possibility, though not a necessity.

When God made man, He did not make him as he is, any more than the world as it is. He made everything good, but He was not pleased to put forth His power to keep everything good. He was pleased to put the creature to the proof. He tried the creature in two great spheres — above and below. The angels fell before man; and the chief of those that fell above is the great tempter. No man can account for sin, for the ruin of the world, in any other way than Scripture reveals. Many a man has essayed to do so. The brightest wits and the greatest minds have attempted it; but they have never conceived anything that was not rubbish when they have not followed the word of God. Some have endeavoured to account for sin by supposing that there are two Gods — a good one and a bad one; because there are evidences of goodness all around us, and there are too plainly the evidences of badness. This hypothesis, I need not stay to show, is sheer folly. There is but one who is Almighty; and man cannot get rid of the consciousness of One — not merely one thing but One Being — One who has power and will and purpose, One who has affections no less than mind, but who, nevertheless, subjects the creatures that He made to a moral probation. If He kept everything from falling, there could be no such trial at all. All would be mechanical or chemical; and the wonderful scene of the conflict of good and evil — of good wrought by His grace in the heart of man, and rising above Satan's power and wiles of evil — would be quite lost. What is still more important, the active display of love and righteousness on God's part, of moral qualities reproduced in repentant believing man, would be completely destroyed, if it were merely divine power so keeping the creature that there could be no failure.

But although God is not the author of sin, but its Judge, He, for His own wise purposes, allowed it to enter His dominions. He will make it serve Him, and He will get glory to His great and holy name through it, and in the end banish it from His sight forever; and we may be sure enough of this, that were it not destined to serve the purposes of His heart, it could have gained no entrance. But it does serve Him, not willingly, but in spite of the fact that it is an enemy it is made to serve Him, as is every other creature, be that creature good or evil, be it the horrible invention of the wicked mind of angel or of man, or be it the offspring of the goodness of God Himself, everything must serve in the carrying out of the purposes of His love; and in nothing shall the creature be triumphant, for dust must be the serpent’s meat, and every proud spirit must be humbled, and in the end come to learn, in the bitterness of eternal defeat, destruction and death, that all its profound plotting and restless wickedness have only been helping on the end the blessed God had in view from the beginning.

God does not bring evil into existence, but there are times in the history of the world when, in His wisdom and the carrying out and furtherance of His own plans, He withdraws His restraining hand, and allows evil to rear its head, so that it may be destroyed, and brought to nought. For instance God said to Pharaoh long ago,

God, whose purpose is only disclosed at the end in the profit done to Job's soul (though His being the source of all is revealed), leaves Job, in a measured way, in the hand of the adversary for temptation and trial. Such is the scene and spring of action from within. But all comes on Job from without by apparently ordinary causes. The predatory hordes of Sabaeans, Chaldeans, and the like, make razzias on his flocks and herds; a violent wind from the desert throws down his house when his children are feasting; and at last a disease of the country attacks his own body: rapidly accumulated no doubt, but all ordinary events, however trying. What was Job's own character? He was, in his general character, a godly, upright, gracious man, fearing God, eschewing evil, and gracious with those around him. Why should evils, if there be a divine government, fall on such a one? If this world be simply the present manifestation of divine government as such, then indeed it would be incredible. But though Providence overrules all, and God delights to bless even temporarily; and though in result, when He takes to Him His own great power and rules, the blessing of the righteous will fully arrive; yet now, in a world of sin, He is carrying on another purpose, the perfecting of saints for the full enjoyment of Himself. This, since sin and will are come in, is wrought in two ways — judgment of self, and submission to God.

Yes, God has allowed it, and why? That is a question for each nation concerned to solemnly and seriously answer for itself. A reason there must be. It is impossible to think that He who has “no pleasure in the death of the wicked”—nay, who in love for a guilty world spared not His own Son, can find it in permitting affliction and misery to come upon His creatures without a very sufficient cause. That were incredible.