Why does God not seem to care about the millions of starving children in the world?

What human mind can conceive the immensity of misery that exists upon this globe? The very thought of suffering on a large scale so overwhelms the mind that it grasps it not, and so it is easier to consider it than the detailed misery of one misfortune. We feel compassion, and are moved to tears, over one starving child; we hear of famines and of thousands perishing, and fail to grasp the meaning of the words. But every sigh, every sorrow, every pain — every detail of each grief over the whole face of His creation is known to God, and the cry thereof rises up to Him.

While God does not intervene publicly and make wars to cease in the earth, He still acts providentially, and brings good out of evil for the blessing of men and for His own glory, He sees every wicked atrocity and says, "Vengeance is Mine, I will repay." He beholds all the sorrow in the earth, and calls the distressed and broken-hearted to find in Him everlasting consolation, and a peace and hope that the world cannot afford.

Thus far we must needs go, then, with the Arminians, and the truth of predestination does not conflict with this in any way. We have here simply to inquire what is, and we can affirm that Omniscient Goodness willed it so to be,- from eternity so willed it; did not of course desire or work the evil, but ordained to suffer it, and in this sense that it should be. The mystery of evil being thus suffered we accept,- do not explain, or suppose it possible to be explained. As a fact, we know it is, and know too that God is, and that He is against the evil. Scripture is of course in no wise responsible for it, while it gives us, not an explanation, but such a revelation of God Himself, and in view of it, that we can have perfect faith in Him, and leave it unexplained. The cross has glorified Him in every attribute more wonderfully as to sin than this could raise suspicion; while it demonstrates that not mere power could deal with evil, the victory must be that of goodness, and in suffering.

Thus far we must needs go, then, with the Arminians, and the truth of predestination does not conflict with this in any way. We have here simply to inquire what is, and we can affirm that Omniscient Goodness willed it so to be, from eternity so willed it; did not of course desire or work the evil, but ordained to suffer it, and in this sense that it should be. The mystery of evil being thus suffered we accept, — do not explain, or suppose it possible to be explained. As a fact, we know it is, and know too that God is, and that He is against the evil. Scripture is of course in no wise responsible for it, while it gives us, not an explanation, but such a revelation of God Himself, and in view of it, that we can have perfect faith in Him, and leave it unexplained. The cross has glorified Him in every attribute more wonderfully as to sin than this could raise suspicion; while it demonstrates that not mere power could deal with evil, the victory must be that of goodness, and in suffering.

Thus, although the world be a ruin before God, and although it is too evident that Satan is the restless worker of all evil here below, which is brought before us in the plainest manner in this book, God who is above it all, and who seems to take no part in it, carries on His gracious ways, and this to convert and deliver those who have been wretched, vile, and rebellious. It is not that retributive government to which man's heart would constantly limit God, but a government of souls while the world goes on in pride. Man likes to see people punished when they deserve it. It is natural to the heart. There is something in our nature which, when one is not actually suffering or dreading it, likes to find some (shall I say good or bad?) reason why another should be punished if he does suffer. This was at work in the three friends. But the book of Job is intended to show that they were all wrong in their application of this truth. Not that there will not be perfect retribution when the time comes for it, by the only One capable of carrying it out; but that it is only partial now. Christ alone will act perfectly in it by-and-by; but the time awaits His coming. There will be no adequate retributive government till the Lord Jesus takes the reins. He Himself was in this world the greatest of sufferers, as we know; and so the saints were sufferers before Christ, and still more since Christ. At any rate, the grace now displayed is such that God counts it a privilege given us to suffer for His sake; so that we surely ought to be able to bless God for it in a way that Job and no other could, because we have Christ fully revealed. Job did not know why his gracious Master gave him up to such tremendous and reiterated trouble. He had to learn why, and to learn it slowly and painfully, but blessedly at the end. We begin where he ended. Having in Christ the true light of God, we have not only His perfect love, but that there goes on a kind of divine government quite different from retribution; that there is a gracious dealing of God for the good of souls, and connected with it a moral government, unheeded by the world, which, spite of all appearances to the contrary, never fails. It is not a government consisting in what is public, or what natural men can judge of. It is none the less God dealing with souls, and to all that bow to His word and to Himself ineffable blessing. The discipline may be painful, not to say that it must be. What blessing can there be without it in our nature and in this world? The cross tells what it cost the Lord Himself to make our blessing a righteous thing; the manifestation of the same truth in the highest and deepest way. Where is there a single joy for us, once dead in sins but now saved by grace, that had not its root in the sorrows and sufferings of Him who bore our judgment? And so it is for those that learn what sin is in the presence of God.

When I look through the earth, I see sorrow, trouble, affliction, and trial of every kind natural to man as fallen. I see too not merely natural death, but warfare and all its attendant horrors; famine, and its wretchedness; and sometimes, as has strikingly been the case lately in India, all of these combined together, and not only so, but, ere combined, each so augmented in itself as to be fearful. How fearful is the account of the item of famines alone in India during the last thirty years! by one, three millions swept off in a few months, the atmosphere of districts putrid from unburied corpses, rivers choked with the bodies of the famished dead and of babes and children cast therein by their parents! These wild fruits of the fall are growing everywhere naturally and spontaneously, yet not now to us as disciples without our God. As upon the throne of the Lord God Almighty, He has commissioned agents over them all. The swelling and flowing of their course is all overruled, little as we may see it, for the bringing in of the Lordship of Jesus. As disciples also, we may be subject to them in whole or in part, for they are not, properly speaking, either judgments or chastenings: if in them, we should know not only that all things are of Him who hath reconciled us to Himself (the blessing we get from our adoption by Him), but more than this, that they are the precursors (His purpose in then who sits upon the throne) of the Lordship. They are the cover of the hand of God overruling even wickedness, so as to keep it in check, and give it guidance, that it may, though unconsciously, work on toward the introduction of the glory of the Lord; and, while so doing, work together for good to them that love God even now. How wonderful are the ways of our God! If warfare or famine, or aught else, sprang up, the thought it surely should awaken in us is that of the preparation for Jesus' coming Lordship. And while I recognise that into judgment we cannot come, because accepted in the Beloved, I do not see that the saints are guaranteed against providential trials of any kind; nor do I see in these four horsemen any signs whatsoever, as for a particular season or period of time for which we must look as to precede the appearing of Jesus to us. The whole, for what I can tell, may have had its full accomplishment long since.*

Nor does the Lord, to Whom all belongs below as on high, need the apology of man to justify His permission, any more than for the sickness and death, the plague and the famine, the tempest and the earthquake, which He employs providentially in this fallen world. To what purposes of grace does He not turn every one of these inflictions for such as hear His word. So doubtless it was then whether Jews or Gentiles owned the swine.

The Bible alone accounts for the presence of evil, and its resultant misery and death. By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin. It is a righteous thing that misery and death, with all their concomitant evils, should be the lot of man — the righteous dealings of a just and holy God with rebels; and, while sin remains, righteousness demands that all these evils — the fruit of sin — should also remain. Even God's saints, while here in the body, are exposed to the sorrows to which humanity is heir. The Lord Jesus Himself submitted, in grace truly, to all the consequences — sin excepted — of taking a place among men and specially the remnant of Israel, a thing wholly distinct from being made sin on the cross. To remove the sufferings while sin is present would be a denial of God's righteous government.

Suffering comes to us from different quarters and for various reasons, but that which is testing the greatest number now, and causing the most suffering at this time is the war, and many are asking why it should be? Why, if God is good, should there be any war at all? That is a question that calls for an answer. God is good, ten thousand times ten thousand voices bear witness to His goodness, but the world as such has rejected God, and despised the riches of His goodness and forbearance and long-suffering not knowing that His goodness would lead them to repentance (Rom. 2:4) and has chosen to follow Satan, the adversary instead of God. In Eden Adam listened to the voice of Satan and turned his back upon God and by that act of disobedience sin entered into the world and death by sin (Rom. 5:13) and when sin came in, peace spread its wings and flew away. “There is no peace, says the Lord, unto the wicked” (Isa. 48:22). The world has been Satan’s world since that day and “suffering and sweat and tears and blood” are the result, they are part of sin’s foul brood.

If the world has enough and to spare for its children, that is God's faithfulness to men as Creator, and He cannot be blamed for the misery that is in it, and the blame must lie at another door. But is the misery caused by muddling of men? If it is, men may in course of time, with the increase of knowledge and experience, and of the many inventions for the production and distribution of the necessities of life, reduce the muddle to order and evolve a millennium of peace and plenty.