In his autobiography, a well-known TV personality describes the time when he asked, “If God the Father is so all-loving, why didn’t He come down and go to Calvary?” His comment reveals that he really did not understand much about our Father.

JOHN STOTT DESCRIBES …

At the end of time, millions of people were scattered on a great plain before God’s throne. Some of the groups near the front talked heatedly, not cringing with shame but with belligerence.

“How can God judge us? How can He know about suffering?” snapped a brunette. She jerked back a sleeve to reveal a number from a Nazi concentration camp. “We endured terror, beatings, torture and death!”

In another group, a black man lowered his collar. “What about this? he demanded, showing an ugly rope burn. “We suffocated in slave ships, were wrenched from our loved ones, and toiled until only death gave release.”

Far out across the plain were hundreds of such groups. Each had a complaint against God for the evil and suffering He had permitted in His world. How lucky God was to live in heaven where all was sweetness and light, where there was no weeping, no fear, no hunger, no hatred; indeed, what did God know about what man had been forced to endure in this world? After all, God lead a pretty sheltered life, they said.

So each group sent out a leader, chosen because he had suffered the most. There was a Jew, a black, an Indian untouchable, an illegitimate, a Hiroshima victim, and a Siberian slave camp refugee. In the center of the plain, they consulted with each other.

At last they were ready to present their case. It was rather simple; before God would be qualified to be their judge, He must endure as they had. Their decision was that God “should be sentenced to live on earth — as a man.” But, because He was God, they set certain safeguards to be sure He could not use His divine powers to help Himself.

• Let Him be born a Jew.

• Let the legitimacy of His birth be doubted, so that none would know who was truly His father.

• Let Him champion a cause so just, but so radical, that it would engender towards Him the hate, condemnation, and elimination efforts of every major traditional and established religious authority.

• Let Him try to describe what no man has ever seen, tasted, heard or smelled — let Him try to communicate God to men.

• Let Him be betrayed by His dearest friends.

• Let Him be indicted on false charges, tried before a prejudiced jury and convicted by a cowardly judge.

• Let Him see what it was like to be terribly alone and completely abandoned by every living thing.

• Let Him be tortured and then let Him die! Let Him die a humiliating death, with common thieves.

As each leader announced his portion of the sentence, loud murmurs of approval went up from the great throng of people. When the last had finished pronouncing sentence, there was a long silence.

No one moved — for suddenly all knew … God had already served His sentence.[1]

FATHER, we can trust You. There is no other thing that we can say; You have proved to us that you are Worthy!

Article by DeVern Fromke, from his book Why God Intervenes. Sure Foundation, 2008. pp. 89-91. Used by permission. Available in print from Indiana Depot, 11298 Old Paths Lane, Shoals, Indiana, 47581-7234. visit http://www.surefoundation.com/

[1] Adapted from “The Silence,” The Cross of Christ, by kind permission of John Stott, InterVarsity Press. http://www.ivpress.com/cgi-ivpress/book.pl/code=3320

For further study on these issues, see these online booklets:

Why Would A Good God Allow Suffering?http://www.rbc.org/bible-study/discovery-series/bookletDetail.aspx?id=48116&Topic=862

Do Christians Believe In Three Gods? http://www.rbc.org/bible-study/discovery-series/bookletDetail.aspx?id=48118&Topic=862