Problem: Is the Lord good or bad to people? Psalm 145:9; Lamentations 3:38 and Isaiah 45:7; Jeremiah 18:11; Ezekiel 20:25, 26
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\nSolution: The Lord is good to people<\/p>\n
Psalm 145:9, \u201cThe Lord is good to all, And His mercies are over all His works.\u201d
\nLamentations 3:38, \u201cIs it not from the mouth of the Most High That both good and ill go forth?\u201d<\/p>\n
The Lord is bad to people<\/p>\n
Isaiah 45:6-7, \u201cI am the Lord, and there is no other, 7 The One forming light and creating darkness, Causing well-being and creating calamity; I am the Lord who does all these.\u201d
\nJeremiah 18:11, \u201cSo now then, speak to the men of Judah and against the inhabitants of Jerusalem saying, \u2018Thus says the Lord, \u201cBehold, I am fashioning calamity against you and devising a plan against you. Oh turn back, each of you from his evil way, and reform your ways and your deeds.\u201d\u2019
\nEzekiel 20:26, \u201cand I pronounced them unclean because of their gifts, in that they caused all their firstborn to pass through the fire so that I might make them desolate, in order that they might know that I am the Lord.\u201d<\/p>\n
God\u2018s nature is good.\u00a0 He is not evil.\u00a0 He cannot sin and He can do no wrong.\u00a0 All that the Lord does is right and just.\u00a0 But, that does not mean that we always understand what God does or why He does it.\u00a0 After all, His thoughts are not our thoughts and His ways are not our ways.\u00a0 So, does God do good or bad to people?<\/p>\n
First of all, good and bad are relative.\u00a0 He is good to all in that He gives them rain, air, food, and life (Matt. 5:43-48).\u00a0 He is good to all in that He provided His Son as a sacrifice for sin so that we could escape the judgment to come (John 3:16-17).\u00a0 But, when He sends a plague to wipe out a crop (Pharaoh in Egypt), is that good or bad?\u00a0 From our perspective, it would seem bad to allow such a terrible thing to happen, let alone cause it to happen.\u00a0 But since God is not bad, what He does, though tough to understand sometimes, is right.\u00a0 For example, it was right to send the plague upon the Egyptians.\u00a0 They were holding the Jewish people prisoner.\u00a0\u00a0 Was it loving to the Egyptians?\u00a0 Not really?\u00a0 Was it the right thing to do?\u00a0 Absolutely.<\/p>\n
God moves through history carrying out various judgments. Doing so does not mean He is not good or loving.\u00a0 Consider a judge who is a very kind and forgiving man.\u00a0 When a criminal is found guilty, he must pass the judgment upon him, even if that punishment is harmful to the criminal.\u00a0 Does it mean that the judge is not loving or any less loving?\u00a0 Not at all.\u00a0 It means that the judge has acted righteously, according to the Law.<\/p>\n
So too with God.\u00a0 He is right and just.\u00a0 He acts according to Law.\u00a0 The Laws that He has given are a reflection of His holy and righteous character.\u00a0 That is why it is wrong to lie, steal, etc.\u00a0 To sin against God is to incur His wrath since that sin is an affront to His holy character.\u00a0 The very fact that He so often withholds His judgment upon us is a very loving and good thing to do.\u00a0 However, when He does allow judgment to come through, He is just as good and loving.\u00a0 But, He is exercising His righteousness for a purpose.\u00a0 In His sovereign will to carry history to its designed conclusion (Acts 4:28), He delivers righteous judgment to those who oppose Him in sinfulness. This is good and right to do.<\/p>\n
Does God bring good and bad upon people?\u00a0 Yes, He does.\u00a0 The problem is our perspective.\u00a0 To us, it sometimes appears as bad.\u00a0 To God it is righteous.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Problem: Is the Lord good or bad to people? Psalm 145:9; Lamentations 3:38 and Isaiah 45:7; Jeremiah 18:11; Ezekiel 20:25, 26<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[22,8,27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19596","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bible-errors","category-bible-study","category-bible-teaching","no-thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pathway2truth.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19596","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pathway2truth.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pathway2truth.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pathway2truth.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pathway2truth.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19596"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pathway2truth.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19596\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pathway2truth.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pathway2truth.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19596"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pathway2truth.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}