Why doesn’t God just end the world and stop the corruption?
Question:
We know, as a fact, that our God does not want anyone to perish and wants all to come to the knowledge of Him and salvation. We even deduce that he created us out of love, as He is love. At the same time, we expect that most people will not be saved, and it is somehow a big question to me to understand why God allows the world to still go on even though the number of people is still growing (7 billion or so at the moment). And so with every generation, if most of such a big number are heading to destruction, then it does not seem, in my poor understanding, compatible with God's original intentions. If God cares so much for what He labored for (opposite to Jonah and the plant) and He even seems to be concerned with the numbers, why does He not stop the world instead of allowing the multiplication of the billions, who would not very likely become Christians?
Answer:
The view is backward. God makes men righteous. "Truly, this only I have found: That God made man upright, But they have sought out many schemes" (Ecclesiastes 7:29). It is men who leave God. Yet God is not content with that situation. He reaches out to restore those who will come to him. "For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved" (John 3:17). God doesn't need to condemn the world; the world has done too efficient of a job condemning itself.
The plain fact is that this world continues because God sees that there are still more to be saved. "The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance" (II Peter 3:9). To end this world too soon is to deny salvation to a few more.
God has shown that He isn't concerned about numbers, but about individuals. In the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, God offered to spare the cities for just ten people. Even though there were far fewer, God still saved those whom He could. In a completely corrupt world, God rescued just eight people from destruction by the flood.
"For if God did not spare the angels who sinned, but cast them down to hell and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved for judgment; and did not spare the ancient world, but saved Noah, one of eight people, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood on the world of the ungodly; and turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes, condemned them to destruction, making them an example to those who afterward would live ungodly; and delivered righteous Lot, who was oppressed by the filthy conduct of the wicked (for that righteous man, dwelling among them, tormented his righteous soul from day to day by seeing and hearing their lawless deeds) -- then the Lord knows how to deliver the godly out of temptations and to reserve the unjust under punishment for the day of judgment" (II Peter 2:4-9).
The world continues to this day because there are still souls to be rescued.
