The Lord was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart. The Lord said, “I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, from man to animals to creeping things and to birds of the sky; for I am sorry that I have made them” (Gen. 6:6-7).

I [the Lord] regret that I have made Saul king, for he has turned back from following Me and has not carried out My commands (1 Sam. 15:11).

I suppose it is comforting to know that even God has His bad days. But on a more serious level, we can’t help but wonder why God would regret something that He Himself did. We just read that God said He was sorry that He “made man on the earth.” He wished He hadn’t done it. But if God is all-knowing, and if He knows everything that is yet to happen, why didn’t He decide not to create man on the earth before He got started, knowing that He would regret it otherwise?

An astounding fact: Although the scribes and Pharisees rigorously studied God’s revelation of Himself in the Old Testament, when God appeared in human flesh and simply acted like Himself, they didn’t recognize Him. In fact, they hated Him. Think of that for a moment! Here were men who could quote large portions of the Old Testament, who considered themselves extremely devoted to God, who were Israel’s spiritual leaders, and who were anticipating a Messiah, but when God appeared on the earth, they wanted to kill Him. They were surprised by Jesus, to say the least.

Why were they so surprised? Simply put, He didn’t act and talk like they thought God should. More specifically, He didn’t keep their man-made traditions. What makes their surprise even more tragic is that Jesus didn’t come to earth disguised or impersonating someone else. He came as Himself—as God. Jesus acted just as He had been acting for thousands of years as revealed in Scripture. When the scribes and Pharisees critically questioned Him about His words or deeds, He answered them from Scripture. He knew what He was talking about. He knew what He was doing. He played the part of God flawlessly, because He was God. Still they were utterly surprised by Him.

Everyone around the world who believes in God (or gods), whether Christian, Hindu, Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist or something else, seems to be asking the same question—Why? Why did God decree or permit a tsunami (and it must be one or the other, as there are no other possibilities for those who believe in an all-powerful God) to take the lives of well over 226,000 people in eleven nations? I’d like to make an attempt to answer that question as a Christian.

Do you remember Y2K? It was 14 years ago this month. Looking back, it is amazing that so many of us anticipated catastrophic events on January 1, 2000. Dr. James Dobson, a man I respect and who has been right about so many things, dedicated three radio broadcasts, interviewing experts, to help Christians prepare for the inevitable. But he, along with so many of us, was dead wrong.

When I first felt called to the ministry in 1976, I came home from Penn State for a weekend to tell my parents that I was quitting my freshman year of college to enter the ministry. They suggested that I stay in college and then go on to seminary. I told them I couldn’t do that because it would be seven years before I graduated from seminary, and I was sure Jesus would be returning within seven years. He’d come back and I’d have nothing to show!

God chooses people. He chose a man named David, for example, to be a king of Israel.

Quite obviously, God’s choice of David was not a random choice. He didn’t draw straws up in heaven. Rather, God’s choice of David was a calculated, intelligent choice. He saw something in David that He liked. Specifically, He liked David’s heart, and for that reason, God chose him (see 1 Sam. 13:13-14, 16:6-12; Acts 13:22).

At the last church that I pastored, I required that our ushers wear a coat and tie on those once-a-month Sundays when we celebrated the Lord’s Supper. It seemed to me that those who distributed the elements of Jesus’ body and blood should demonstrate at least that much respect in performing their sacred duty.

On one of those Communion Sundays, while an usher was driving his family to the church, his five-year-old son noticed that he was wearing a coat and tie. He innocently asked, “Dad, is this the Sunday that we all eat God’s holy snack?”

When it comes to the subject of casting out demons, we are prone to fall into the ditch on either side of the road, either downplaying something that is entirely scriptural, or finding demons behind every bush. As with all biblical topics, the truth is found in the middle of the extremes.

Certainly casting out demons is not a subject we should ignore. It was a regular feature of Jesus’ ministry (see Mark 1:32-34, 39; Luke 4:41; 6:18; 7:21). Moreover, He commissioned the twelve to cast out demons, and they were generally quite successful, bringing deliverance to many suffering people (see Mark 6:12-13; Luke 10:17; Acts 5:16; 8:7; 19:12). Beyond that, there was at least one person during Christ’s ministry who cast out demons in His name whom He had not specifically authorized (see Mark 9:38-39). There are also records in the book of Acts of many people being delivered from unclean spirits through the ministry of the apostles (see Acts 5:16; 8:6-7; 16:16-18; 19:11-12). Finally, one of the signs that Jesus said would follow believers is that they would cast out demons (see Mark 16:17). So the exorcism of demons was not something that was only for the early church.