After all, while seeing good people suffer is horrible, it’s not much fun seeing evil people having fun either.

In the beginning, Adam had dominion over this world, and in that sense, Adam was made the “god” of this world. But when Adam and Eve ate of the forbidden fruit, their eyes were opened and they knew good and evil (Gen. 3:6,7). God had told Adam and Eve that on the day they ate of the fruit, they would die. Adam and Eve didn’t die physically; they died spiritually. When they died spiritually, they were cut off or separated from God. By that act of disobedience, Adam forfeited his dominion on this earth 

to the devil. The Bible substantiates the fact that Adam sold out his dominion to Satan through disobedience, and allowed Satan to become the god of this world. LUKE 4:1,2,5-8, We know Satan didn’t have authority over the world before Adam gave it to him, because Satan fell from the dominion he did have (Ezek. 28:16-18; Luke 10:18).

God sent Jesus to the earth to redeem mankind and to restore to man his lost dominion and authority on this earth. And as man exercises the authority he has been given in Christ, he fulfils God’s plan and will upon the earth. 

When God created the world, it was perfect. If you read the creation story in Genesis 1 and 2, you will notice that God had the same thing to say at the end of every day: And God saw that it was good (Genesis 1:4, 9, 12, 18, 25, 31).

The Bible is also filled with examples of God allowing bad things to happen to good people. God allowed Satan to mess with Job. God allowed Daniel to be thrown into a den of lions. God allowed Joseph to be sold into slavery. God allowed Paul to be thrown into prison and mistreated. God allowed Stephen to die at the hands of Jewish leaders who refused to believe that Jesus was the Messiah. 

Man allowed the devil (doer – of – evil) to perpetrate his acts when he surrendered his authority in Gen 3. That introduced a new world order where evil became the order of the day and man began to die. God does not have a legal right to intervene because man surrendered that authority  to the devil.

Parents can teach, chastise, correct, direct, threaten, punish, coerce, or any number of other activities to try to curtail their child’s behaviour, but until the child makes a decision to do as they are directed by their parents, it will not be done. The child knows the expected behaviour but chooses to run even though they were warned about the potential consequences. The parent sees the child running but decides to allow them to run and the child falls. Is it the parent’s fault that the child fell? Did the parent cause the child to fall? This is kind of how the permissive will of God works. He allows us to exercise our free will even though He knows there will be consequences because we chose a particular action. He teaches us through our experiences how to depend on Him. And then, He uses those bad things to make us stronger; He uses them for His glory to teach others how much better life is when we depend on Him.

The Bible says, “Sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned” (Romans 5:12). It was through Adam that sin entered the world. When Adam sinned, he immediately died spiritually—his relationship with God was broken—and he also began dying physically—his body began the process of growing old and dying. From that point on, every person born has inherited Adam’s sin nature and suffered the same consequences of spiritual and physical death. This is why Jesus told Nicodemus, “You must be born again” (John 3:7). Physical birth provides us with a sinful human nature; spiritual rebirth provides us with a new nature, “created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness” (Ephesians 4:24).

A diplomat in the UK speaking at the United Nations may do or say things that we disapprove of, but he is still the diplomat—he is the officially recognized representative of the UK. It’s the same way when Adam and Eve sinned, every child born through that union inherited their genes which already had the nature of sin. It will take reconnection to God to restore what was broken through disobedience.