tell me why, God
Few people are grief-striken when they hear of criminals or ruthless dictators dying as a result of their offences.
But when "innocent" people perish, perhaps as a result of some natural disaster or act of terrorism, all of us tend to ask why.

This has always been the case.
Job, one of the oldest books of the Bible, is one big question: "Why do the 'innocent' suffer?"
In Luke 13, two tradgedies that had occurred also raised the question, "Why?"

Fo thousands of years in Jewish culture it was commonly believed that people suffered primarily because God was punishing them for some specific sin--which sometimes was the case.
Jesus, however, emphasized that all people must repent before a holy God (Luke 13:1-5)

Why is that?
There really are no innocent people.
As Paul told us," Everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God's glorious standard" (Romans 3:23).
God is not accountable to us to explain why tradgedies occur, but we are accountable to God to confess our sins so that we can be in a right relationship with Him.

When thousands of people died on Spetember 11, 2001, people all over the world asked, "Why?"
As far as I know, God hasn't given us a direct answer to that question.
What's better, however, is that God has given us this promise: If we repent and accept Jesus' sacrifice for our sins, our death will not be the end.
We are assured that our souls will live on---forever!

And with that assurance, we can easily understand why our need for repentance is more important than our demand to know why.

-Dean Ohlman, ODJ

Luke 13:1-5
You will perish, too, unless you repent of your sins and turn to God (v.3).