There have been arguments by unthinking people who say there is no “God”, because how can a loving god allow war, murder, mayhem, etc? God didn’t allow it. Man did. What God gave Man to manage is Man’s to manage. God didn’t tell Cain to whack Abel with a stick and kill him. Cain did. History is full of examples of Man doing to Man and environment whatever Man wanted then blaming God or some god for things going bad. It was Man’s responsibility to manage; not God’s.
Jesus told this parable (story with a point):
There was a master of a house who planted a vineyard and put a fence around it and dug a wine-press in it and built a tower and leased it to tenants, and went into another country. When the season for fruit drew near, he sent his servants to the tenants to get his fruit. And the tenants took his servants and beat one, killed another, and stoned another. Again he sent other servants, more than the first. And they did the same to them. Finally he sent his son to them, saying, “They will respect my son.” But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, “This is the heir. Come, let us kill him and have his inheritance.” And they took him and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. When therefore the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants? (Matthew 21.33-40 ESV)
The more science improves, the more science points to a designer. There are too many needful things to occur to make it the “happenstance” theology of the evolutionists and atheists. This essay is not about that. This essay is about God being the garden owner and we, the lessee tenants, were given a specific mandate to fulfill regarding the garden.
God made the Earth (Genesis 1.1). God made a garden in a place He called Eden (pleasurable, Genesis 2.8). God told Man to tend it (Genesis 2.15). God gave Man dominion and rule over everything over all the Earth (Genesis 1.26). God said be fruitful (produce) and multiply (do it again) and fill the Earth (repeat that until the Earth looks like the garden in Eden, pretty much; Genesis 1.28-31)
It was Man’s to work, to dominate, to set rule, to prosper, to multiply that prosperity, and to fill the Earth with the model that was the garden in Eden. Yet, that didn’t work out so well, because Man sought his/her own way and went down a path that was not good for them.
Did God cause that? No. That was all Man. Some will opine here that it was the devil, and they would be wrong. According to God, Adam had rule over everything on Earth. He did not have to go where he went, but he did. It wasn’t God’s fault. It wasn’t the devil’s fault. It was Man’s fault. (Genesis 3)
Even after getting kicked out of the garden and Eden, Man did not lose the job description given earlier. It just got harder (Genesis 3.17-19).
It was not God’s fault that Cain killed Abel, nor God’s fault when Cain’s descendant Lamech killed two men. It was Cain’s fault and it was Lamech’s fault. Not God’s. It was not God’s fault that from Seth to Noah that Man’s heart grew to prefer to do whatever; some might say evil. It was not God’s fault that most of Man chose every intention of their thoughts to do evil continually (Genesis 6.5). So, God did a do-over with Noah (Genesis 6-8). Then God gave the same instructions to Noah that He gave Adam: be fruitful and multiply and fill all the Earth (Genesis 9.1)
Now if you are writing a fable or fairy tale or religious dogma, at this point you would say “And they lived happily ever after.” Well, such was not the case. From Noah to Nimrod is four generations (Genesis 10). Nimrod basically calls himself a god to himself, a king, and a hunter against God. So much for the do-over, right? Was that God’s fault that a guy who was a leader should go against God and make himself king and god? What God gave Man to manage was Man’s to manage.
Fortunately, not everyone was a “Nimrod” – which has become a byword for someone stupid and short-sighted. God worked with those who worked with Him. Abram got up and went where God said go. God blessed Abram and made him greater, Abraham (Genesis 12-17). Isaac heard God and stayed. God blessed him and made him greater (Genesis 26). Jacob met with God along the way, made covenant (binding deal), and partnered with God. God blessed him, made him greater, and changed Jacob’s name to Israel (God prevails, Genesis 32.28).
At this point in time in Man’s history there are kings and pharaohs who made war with each other because of some perceived slight or because the other had more stuff than the other. There were cities that are full of people who only chased after whatever seemed good to them at the time. There were kings that made slaves of Man. There were men who just wanted debauchery and power over other men. Was this the Judeo-Christians’ God’s fault? Remember God (YHWH Elohim) gave the Earth to Man to tend. Many of these kings and people groups did not even call on the name of the biblical god. They did not ask or inquire or anything toward the God of the Bible. Man was failing again. How could this new set of calamities be attributed to God?
Some will say at this point: Yeah, but God is supposed to be all-powerful and in control of everything. Yeah, about that … If you gave your child something to do and your child did not do it, was it your fault they did not do as they were told? Well, weren’t you in control of your child? Why aren’t you responsible for little Billy or Janie for brushing their teeth or cleaning their room or taking out trash? So, was it your fault they didn’t do what they were supposed to do?
When your children get to a certain age, you stop doing for them. Right? Well, you should stop doing for them because it is their turn just like your parents may have done for you. It is your turn. If you did not do something you were supposed to do, was there a consequence? If you are repeatedly late for work and get fired, whose fault is that? Was it your parents’ fault? Nope. It is yours. You own that. In the same way, many of you have that expectation of your children that will do for themselves and may just suffer the consequences of not doing what they should. If they do not do what they should and they know they should do it because you taught them the right way they should do it, is that your fault if they do not do it?
So, knowing that it is not your fault if you children do not do what you said they should, showed them how they should, how does it become God’s fault when His children do as bad or worse than your children? If it is not your fault your children do not do as they should, how can it be God’s fault either?
Now some people’s children are acting just as their parents’ taught them: do unto others before they do unto you, get yours while you can and all you can. Then those same parents are shocked their children later take all they can from their parents with nothing but emptiness in return. Those children did exactly what they were taught to do. In those cases, yes, it is your fault.
But, God was not willing to throw it all away just yet. God showed up one more time to show Man how it was done and what it should be like.
Okay, stay with me now. I am going to show you how you can get the biblical God to participate in what you do, so that success and failure are on both of you.
God gave Earth to Man. The original plan was to do all this together: God and Man. (Genesis 2) God did not change the deal. Man did. Man chose to do things Man’s way and rely on Man’s wisdom and abilities to get it all done – all being life here on Earth. Since Man changed the deal, God made a new deal which looked like the old deal but a lot harder on Adam. And that is what life without God is like. It is a lot harder on Man.
The God of the Bible worked with those who would work with Him. As a result, there were people mentioned in the Bible as walking with God. There were not too many mentioned, though. And God did really interesting things in their lives as a result of walking with Him. But for the most part, Man seemed to be clueless. Man continually went after Man’s desires and rarely consulted with God.
The part that Man seems to forget about the God of the Bible, He said Man was to His children, made in His image and likeness. Man acted more often as if to never acknowledge that past. Man gave credit or blame to “powers” or “deities” for good or bad harvests, but never took credit for over cutting forests creating deserts, for over farming fields and depleting the soil creating deserts, for over hunting game animals creating extinction or depletion… et cetera. Man, for the most part, seemed to have forgotten what God said Man should do; which was to tend, dominate, rule, prosper, and multiply that every where.
So God shows back up in the lives of Man. This time as one of them. He does this to show them what it would look like for Man to walk with God, to partner with God in their lives. Simon bar Jonah was renamed Peter (Petra, Cephas, Rocky) because Simon heard God say that Jesus was the Son of the Living God, the Christ (anointed of God). And it was on this revelation that Jesus said he would build his assembly, his ecclesia. Jesus presses on and shows those around him how to live a life toward and with God even in the midst of crucible events like false accusation, unjustly mocked and ridiculed, unjustly tried and punished, rejected by everyone, and given a death sentence where the accused carries the instrument of their death to the place of execution. Jesus did all that without waiver. Then he traded all that at the cross, the place of execution, to give you all he had: a life unwavering in right relationship with God.
Your life, the events and decisions that have occurred to you, are not God’s fault. Your life events are either your fault or are the fault of others. Unless you have partnered with God, God is not responsible for what happens to you. You have not partnered with God. It also does not mean if you partner with God that tough situations will not occur. They do. But where are you with God in managing those events? And that is where we end up: how have we managed those life events that have occurred? Have we sought our own enjoyment, pleasures? Jesus said those would be fun … for a season; not always. Have we just tried to get by? Have we tried to make due? Have we relied on others to do for us in the vague hope that they will seek our best interest? (Have you been shocked when those you trusted to do for you didn’t because they used your trust to ensure their own benefit?)
Jesus observed that those who were faithful over a few things typically were faithful over many things too. It is a big planet we are on. It is large but getting smaller was we increase in population and in technology. Reviewing the condition of certain areas of the only planet we can successfully reach, Man has created more deserts than gardens. Douglas Adams wrote a silly story about how a group of humans were stranded on a new planet, and instead of concerns for food and shelter, they immediately decided certain items were ‘currency’ and began hoarding leaves, rocks, and shells. It was and is a sad statement on Man. Rather than working together to make a garden of the planet like the template in Eden, Man has for the most part ran around collecting bits of wood turned into paper, rocks melted into pure metals, and pretty, precious other things.
Here is a thought to consider: what if the Creator of the Universe created others to be like Him, to be creative and share in all the Creator made; what if this same Creator decided to start with just one infinitesimally small patch on a small blob of congealed molecules floating around a larger blob of super-heated molecules being pulled around an even larger mass of blobs along a spiral arm of a relatively small galaxy of stellar blobs in an array of galaxies so numerous and different as to be undefinable in current science; what if the plan was to fill each one of those super-heated blobs – wherever they are found – with gardens like the one in Eden. How would you train a race of people to do that?
Seem familiar now?
Doc Rogers writes.... 
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