I once heard a famous actor being asked the question, “What if there really is a heaven?”  The actor’s response was, “If there is a heaven, he (God) has a lot of explaining to do.”

I am not sure what this actor had on his mind when he made that statement, but the thought is not new.  For a long time, man has been confused as to who will be answering to whom when this life is over.  It is not uncommon for man to think that God has a lot of explaining to do as far as the condition of the world is concerned.  It is as if it is God’s fault that this world is in a mess, and one of these days, He is going to have to explain how He let all this happen.  There are, however, a few things we need to understand.

First, the mess that the world is in is man’s fault, not  God’s.  God created mankind as free moral agents with the ability to choose how they are going to live.  The world is not a mess because God could not have prevented it.  It is a mess because God allowed man to make choices.  The sinful society in which we live is the result of bad decisions on the part of man.   The crime, the wars, the hatred that leads to great violence, and even the poverty that exists in many parts of the world, can all be traced back to man choosing to sin.  When man chooses love over hate, the result is peace and harmony.  When man chooses obedience to God instead of rebellion, the result is blessedness instead of destitution.  God cannot be held responsible for the bad decisions of a world corrupted by sin.

Second, the mess that the religious world is in cannot be blamed on God.  Some conclude that if there was really a God, and if the Bible was really an inspired book, there would be religious unity in the world.  Since there is, instead, religious division, that proves that there is no God.  Surely an all-powerful God can prevent such chaos if He wanted.  The truth, however, can once again be found in the free will of man.  God gave us an inspired book, but He has never forced us to follow it.  He leaves that in the realm of choice.  Man’s responsibility is to read and understand the Word.  The fact that many people read the Bible and still end up divided is not God’s fault either.  It is the fault of those who take the wrong approach to the scriptures.

Some people are divided in religious matters, not over what the Bible says, but over what it does not say.  Have you ever heard people argue over what kind of fruit Adam and Eve ate in the Garden of Eden?  What about why Nicodemus came to Jesus at night instead of the day?  The Bible does not give us the answer to those things; thus, when people argue about it, they are arguing over something that is not even in the Bible.  This happens in more critical issues as well.  Man is divided over whether one should be baptized.  Is that God’s fault?  Of course not!  God has made baptism mandatory and clearly revealed such in the scriptures (Mark 16:16; Acts 2:38; Acts 22:16, etc.).  When someone says we do not have to be baptized, he is basing that conclusion on what the Bible does not say, not on what it says.  That is why there is division.  No one in their right mind would blame God for that.

At other times there is division because of the “but” philosophy.   Someone says, “I know the Bible says this or that, BUT!”  That is a problem with one’s approach to the Word of God.  If we know the Bible is from God, and that it is an inspired book, we should just do what it says.  If everyone did that, there would be no doctrinal division.  Division only comes when people go beyond the Word of God (2 John 1:7).

The point is that the religious world is not in a mess because God somehow was slack in His duty.  God made man with intelligence, gave him a book he could understand,  and then told him to follow it.  It is not God’s fault if man either never looks at it, or decides to take his own way after learning the truth.  Yes, both the physical world and the religious world are a mess.  But, make no mistake about it—in the end, man will have to answer to God, not the other way around.