Evil generally is not the will of God?? Too right it isn't, God is love and there is no evil in him!
How could you weep and mourn with those what suffering in Manchester if you believe that it was the will of God for the suicide bomber to blow himself up and kill their children?
Firs off, when looking at things from God's perspective, we can't take our own view. What God does (and what we believe about what He does) doesn't necessarily determine our emotional (or other) responses. By that I mean that if we believe God is a certain way and think that should make us respond a certain way (mourn with others, have compassion on them them etc...), then we can only make that connection if we believe we are properly able to see things as He does. Since I don't believe we can without revelation (and anything understood without that revelation may well seem twisted), I understand that certain things that the scriptures say about God are hard to reconcile with love, compassion and mercy. But since we are created beings and not the Creator, I accept that there will always be some sort of disconnect between what God has said about Himself and what He does and the way we feel about (and understand) that. That's why it's a good thing judgment is His and not ours. I don't say all this in judgment but rather about plain truth in what I believe scripture reveals about God. In the end, I believe it is far better to have God more closely involved in what we hate than to have Him removed from it - otherwise we have less hope that He is working ALL things after the counsel of His own will.
Is it the will of God for all to be saved? Is it the will of God that any should perish? Does God delight in the death of the wicked? Yes, no and no. But an emotional response (and justified one, I agree!) doesn't change the reality of sin and the matter of God's Sovereignty. If God wills good and evil happens, does that mean God's will was thwarted by either man or Satan? The answer to all three questions is that God will something good but because they aren't fulfilled, man has to believe that God had nothing to do with it. At that point you have yielded a critical part of God's Sovereignty and everything is up for grabs. Satan can now run the show by thwarting critical parts of God's plan.
But, you may say, God merely allows these things to happen. What if you had a parent who knew his child so well that he knew exactly what that child was going to do without fail (I believe God's knowledge of us is far more intimate, but I use this since I think you will agree with the analogy)? And what if that child was approaching another child with a knife and was so mad with that other boy that he was going to use the knife on the other boy? Here's a father who loves his son (and the other boy) so much that all he does is say "Don't do that, son!"? Yes, when the son carries out the awful act, he is guilty. But what loving father will allow that to happen if he has the power to stop it? Unless you believe God couldn't stop the bombing, then you have to believe either He actively willed it (which I don't) or that He allowed it for some good reason. Just like with the above analogy, would you call God loving if He allowed Satan to do something when He very easily could have stopped it? Remember, now, we are dealing with a God who said He would remove a stony heart and replace it with a heart of flesh. He has the power to change a man instantly. What would you say of the father who allowed his boy to visciously attack another when he had full power to stop it? Is that loving? And what if that father said that he loved his son enough to make his own decisions for himself - but he still told him it was wrong (so the father had no blame upon him)? What would you think of that father? And what of his love for the boy who was attacked? Did he not love that boy enough to protect him from the free will decision of the other boy?
It is not the will of God to commit suicide, which in itself is wrong, but to then blow up others? What planet are some of you people on? God is love, that was the work of Satan.
Jesus answered them, Have not I chosen you twelve, and one of you is a devil?
He spake of Judas Iscariot the son of Simon: for he it was that should betray him, being one of the twelve.
John 6:70-71
While I was with them in the world, I kept them in thy name: those that thou gavest me I have kept, and none of them is lost, but the son of perdition; that the scripture might be fulfilled.
John 17:12
Judas was chosen to do what he did - he was a devil and Jesus knew it from the beginning and still chose him. He didn't try to change him but chose him to do a certain, specific thing.
And he answered and said, He that dippeth his hand with me in the dish, the same shall betray me.
The Son of man goeth as it is written of him: but woe unto that man by whom the Son of man is betrayed! it had been good for that man if he had not been born.
Then Judas, which betrayed him, answered and said, Master, is it I? He said unto him, Thou hast said.
Matthew 26:23-25
Jesus knew what was going on. He chose Judas to do what he was supposed to do (betray Him) and yet He still said it would have been better that Judas never had been born. Yet if he hadn't, Jesus would not have been betrayed as He was and crucified as He was (and the scripture would never have been fulfilled). But He also didn't speak about it too loudly since the other disciples didn't realize what was happening until it happened. So God used Judas to achieve something that was not good for Judas but God was (apparently) more concerned with the scripture being fulfilled than Judas being redeemed. The silence with which He treated the matter speaks partly to Him rendering His own judgments that go beyond even His closest friends. So I acknowledge these things are hard to fathom most of the time, but God's will was beyond the evil that Judas brought to the table (so to speak). More evidence of this in John's version :
Jesus answered, He it is, to whom I shall give a sop, when I have dipped it. And when he had dipped the sop, he gave it to Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon.
And after the sop Satan entered into him. Then said Jesus unto him, That thou doest, do quickly.
Now no man at the table knew for what intent he spake this unto him.
John 13:26-28
Judas had already been stealing from the money bag, so he was already a devil. But Satan had not entered him and God willed that this should happen - otherwise, would he have betrayed Jesus? So I do agree with your assessment that these things - these calamities - are Satanic. But by saying so, if we
exclude God, we damage His Sovereignty in a way that ultimately has wide-reaching consequences. Satan entered Judas at just the right time. Yet in doing what he did, it perfectly fulfilled scripture and brought salvation to untold millions. What is interesting is that when Satan tempted Jesus in the wilderness, he was trying to deflect Jesus from His purpose on earth. Now he was (unwittingly?) serving that purpose.
Some terrorists say that they are doing what they do because God wills it, no he doesn't! God wills us to love one another, bless those that curse us and pray for those who dispitefuly use us, and to be full of forgiveness, and Jesus has showed us the way perfectly and we are to follow him!
Again, I fully agree. But the distinction between God as judge, Creator and Sovereign and us as creations means that we cannot always understand His ways. Just because He asks us to do these things (because they are fully aligned with His heart and His approach to humanity) does not mean that He is not involved in things in a way we can't comprehend. If we could comprehend it all, what kind of God would He be?
I simply believe that if we accept those things that we can't fathom as being in some way involved (directly) in God's purposes, then we won't have any cause to lose hope. But if we isolate God from tragedy, we have cut off our only hope. If we have a God who is constantly at war with Satan, we (maybe unconsciously) accept a God who is fighting as we are - not ruling in all aspects of creation. David said that though he make his bed in hell, God would be there. God and Satan may not have the same ends, but Satan's ends will not be achieved and God is not scrambling to react to tragedy. That is the eventual upshot of a view that pits God against Satan with God being utterly absent in anything that we attribute to Satan.
And as for judgement, this world is a world of sin and lusts of the flesh, and Jesus says that Satan is the Prince of it, Paul says that he is the God of this world, and so he is, because people worship him by living by the lusts of their flesh and they worship the creature rather than the creator! The flesh is in darkness, and those that live by it, do the works of it, as did this suicide bomber! When someone loses their life, then it is the will of God, unless it is at the hand of man, then that person who has taken the life will be held responsible for it. As I have said before, God said thou shalt not kill, and he means just that! God is no fool, and he won't be mocked, but how can we be judged by him if we have never heard his word? We are judged by the word of God and we are judged on what we do when we hear it!
Then you have a God whose plan can be thwarted by His creation - or at least One who has to change His plan every time one of those humans messes it up with his doing something according to his will (instead of God's). Even the wrath of man shall praise Him...surely the remainder of wrath He shall restrain.
God has made the earth beautiful, but man, because of the lusts of our flesh, is ruining it, because those in outer darkness care only for themselves, they have no thought of God and put themselves first. Many say they love God with their mouths, but live contrary, and live according to the flesh. This is not the way of God, we are to listen to the Spirit and deny sin as he shows us it, and live by the will of God. We are judged more once we know God, Jesus said to Pilate that those who handed him over had committed the greater sin! So it was a sin to kill him and those who knew God we're? the worst because they knew the law of thou shalt not kill and didn't keep it! So once we know God, we are judged more than those who don't know him. So here's my point, God loves all of us, and he is very merciful, Jesus came for sinners to save them, when James and John asked if he was going to destroy those of Samaria when they refused him, he turned to them and said, "your know not of what manner of Spirit you are, the son of man has come to save lives not destroy them" and this is the heart of God. And this should be the heart of his people, we are here to save lives through Christ, not destroy them, thus the suicide bomber was not doing the will of God, but rather he was listening to Satan when he destroyed lives!
And again, your view of the will of God seems to me to be too separate from the mess of fallen man and fallen creation. God has to play chess with the universe (so to speak) to figure out how to navigate all the problems man's falleness will create for Him and His will. I am not saying God told the bomber to do what he did, but rather that if God hadn't removed the restraints upon him, he never would have done what his evil nature led him to do.
I see the Bible very differently to many here, including the old testament, read it by the Spirit and not by the fleshly eyes as ears. Remember that it is full of deeper meanings, for the sword is the word of God through the Holy Spirit, and this is how God puts evil to death, Jesus said this in Revelation
Revelation 2:16
Repent; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will fight against them with the sword of my mouth.
Listen to what the spirit says, God is love and life, and he judges, puts to death and brings to life by his word. And Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life! Surely you can see through Jesus who was the express image of God that it is not the will of God to blow people up? He was nothing like that, he even asked God to forgive those that crucified him!! This is the heart of God!
I almost completely agree. But would caution against an overly metaphorical approach to the OT. I do believe it speaks in types and shadows, but it is also very real history with man's very real sin and God's very real judgment. Again...read Ezekiel 7-9 and see what God did. Read the promised judgments in Leviticus and Deuteronomy and see how God used other people (or promise to do so) to fulfill His judgments upon Israel. These are not metaphors but plain promises of God working all things after His own will. I don't disagree that forgiveness and faith are central to the gospel and even what God willed from Ancient Israel. But that doesn't change the judgments that eventually came because of persistent sin.
Read Psalm 78 to see just how unimaginably merciful God was to Israel. The central verse says it all :
But he, being full of compassion, forgave their iniquity, and destroyed them not: yea, many a time turned he his anger away, and did not stir up all his wrath.
Psalm 78:38
But we can't read God's judgments through this verse. He did judge - and He still does. That may seem incompatible (to us) with a God of love and forgiveness, but God's judgments have more of a purpose than just punishment :
With my soul have I desired thee in the night; yea, with my spirit within me will I seek thee early: for when thy judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness.
Let favour be shewed to the wicked, yet will he not learn righteousness: in the land of uprightness will he deal unjustly, and will not behold the majesty of the Lord.
Isaiah 26:9-10
Judgments teach the meek and judge the wicked (at the same time).
