What is God doing, playing a game?
When I first arrived in Thailand over forty years ago, I thought the people would be hungry to learn about the love of God and His provision for salvation. Instead, I found that they had serious questions. One question surfaced in a class where I taught the book of John to 100 men from the University of Chulalongkhorn in Bangkok. These men were from the upper class and were some of the finest students in all of Thailand. That day, as I taught from John 3:16, a group of three or four young men in the back of the room sat laughing and talking among themselves. I asked them to share with us what was so funny.
One of the young men stood. I could see that he was on the offensive, which was quite unusual for a Thai student. It meant he did not really consider me to be his teacher. He said, “You foreigners travel 12,000 miles to tell us God loves us, God is love, Jesus is God’s Son. You expect us to believe that Jesus raised the dead, walked on water, and did other miracles. Yet you tell us that if we do not believe your Jesus, we will die and perish forever, condemned by your God. Yours is just a narrow-minded religion. Our religion is broad. We do not condemn anyone. When we listen to you Christians, we see that some of you do not even believe that the other Christians are being saved. You condemn one another. We don’t even know which missionary teaches the truth.”
. . . In my second year in Thailand, I taught a class of four nurses and two young men from the same university, one of who was studying in the field of science. I had given them a survey from Genesis 1 all the way through to the second coming of Christ and the Judgment. Each time I asked if they had any questions, they had none.
At last, the young man studying science said, “You say God created the heavens and the earth and the first man and woman. God put the man and woman in the Garden of Eden, a paradise where there was no death and no sin. Then this Satan came and tempted them. Who created Satan? Where did he come from? Did God create Satan to tempt man? Then you say that because of this sin, death came upon the world, and the man and woman were cast out of the Garden of Eden. Wickedness and corruption came into the world. Then God sent Jesus to die for the sins of the people. All who believe on Jesus can be saved and go to heaven. All who do not believe will die condemned. You say heaven is a paradise. Will there be sin there, as there was in the paradise of Eden?”
“There will be no sin in heaven,” I said. “For Satan and his angels will be destroyed.”
“Why didn’t God do that the first time, instead of leaving sin and wickedness, pain and torture in the world?” he asked. “You say that the masses of the world are going to perish under God’s condemnation. What is God doing? Playing a game?”
… All over the U.S., I have asked Christians, “Do you truly believe that Jesus is God in human form? He lived and walked upon the earth? He never sinned but lived a perfectly holy life such as only God could do? He was hung on a cross, died, and rose from death by the power of the Holy Spirit? As living Lord, He reigns in righteousness, bringing salvation and the hope of eternal life? You truly believe this? Prove it.” When I say this, most Christians, even pastors, look at me with a stunned, blank expression. But that’s what the world is demanding of us, and that’s what it expects that we cannot do. If we cannot prove these answers for ourselves, how can we prove such things to others?
–adapted from The Truth You Know You Know by N. Kenneth Rideout. © 2005 N. Kenneth Rideout. All rights reserved.
