QUESTION: (a) If God is a loving God, why does He allow sickness, suffering, and tragedies such as earthquakes, hurricanes, and tornados? (b) How could a loving God ever send people to hell?

ANSWER: If we ever question God's love, we need to ask ourselves the following two questions:

1. Who was on that central cross during the crucifixion? It was the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Creator of the universe, who was nailed to that awful cross.

2. Why was He there? The Bible answers this question many times. One verse answers it so well. "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life" (John 3:16). All of us deserved eternal death and judgment. God, being holy and just, must judge sin. Therefore God gave His only begotten Son to bear the judgment and die for the sins of all who would believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. Those who come to the Lord Jesus in repentance, believing that He died for them will never perish. (See Romans 3:23; 6:23; Hebrews 9:27,28; Acts 16:31.)

This answers very clearly question (b). A loving God never prepared hell for people. Hell was prepared for Satan and His angels (Matthew 25:41). Those who find themselves in hell will be there because they refused His offered salvation. "He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life; and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life: but the wrath of God abideth on him" (John 3:36).

Now let's look at the answer to question (a). Today God does allow all kinds of natural disasters and tragedies to occur as well as illness and disease. In the book of Romans we read that the whole creation groans and travails in pain together until now (8:18-28). Why is that? Because sin entered into the world and it marred this beautiful creation (Romans 5:12). Sin has affected not only mankind but also all of God's creation. In the original creation we do not read of tornadoes, earthquakes, wars, etc. During the coming thousand year reign of Christ these things will be removed from the earth. (See Isaiah 2:4; 11:4-9; 65:17-25.)

Natural disasters make all people realize their weakness and inability to stop them from occurring. As a result many turn to God when they feel their helplessness in these tragic situations. Many soldiers felt this helplessness during battle and said, "There were no atheists in the fox holes." Below are a few positive results of tragedies, sicknesses and suffering for Christians:

1. Through these trials and sufferings a Christian learns to experience God's wonderful peace and strength.

2. Christians learn how to comfort other believers through the comfort that they have received from the Lord in their trials (2 Corinthians 1:3,4).

3. They also learn to value true riches and to refuse worldly gain and pleasures that have only fleeting value (2 Corinthians 4:16,17).

4. Also the Christian is comforted by the assurance that "all things work together for good to them that love God" (Romans 8:28). Only when we are in heaven will we fully see and understand the whys of all those good and bad things that took place in our lives.

—John D. McNeil