“Nevertheless He did not leave Himself without witness, in that He did good, gave us rain from heaven and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness.” (Act 14:17 NKJ)
In Acts 14, Paul is telling the Gentiles in Lystra how God in the past had not revealed Himself to the Gentiles, but now was calling them to repent and believe in Jesus. He says, in verse 17, that despite that fact, God had still shown the Gentiles before the coming of Christ that He is a good God, so that they always had a witness to Him. He gave them many good things testifying of the fundamentally benevolent nature of God.
God is a God that delights to do good for creatures, and especially those made in His image. There is no logical necessity for food to taste good or for there to be such a thing as wine to gladden our hearts. We see in color. We hear music. None of these things were necessary for life. Even the fact that our brains are wired in such a way to derive joy from all of these things is a purely superfluous gift from God.
God is not stingy with His blessings, either. He overflows with goodness even to people who rebel against Him, as Paul says in the verse we quoted above. People who did not know or love God had many good things in their lives, and most of the bad things in their lives were the direct result of their own sin and refusal to live according to the truth God put in their hearts. But even the wicked man gets to enjoy beautiful sunsets, the laughter of a child, or the taste of fruit. Even the wicked man lives in a universe which is understandable, beautiful in its symmetry, regular in its operations, so that man can understand its laws and live by them. All of these things tell man that the Creator is good and should be worshiped. As I consider how many good and wonderful things we have now while sin and the curse of God yet remains on the world, it makes me shiver to think of the experience of the goodness of God when that curse is finally eradicated when Christ comes again and renews all things.
Indeed, He should be worshiped. We should give thanks for the many good things He has already given us, especially in light of the truth that since God is not only good but infinitely and absolutely good, then there is no good apart from Him. Hell is an absolutely necessary doctrine, and far from being refuted by the goodness of God as some claim, the necessity of hell is driven by the very goodness of God itself. If He is the absolute source of all good, then apart from Him there can be no good at all. Even the end of pain and suffering is a good thing, and thus denied to those who insist on separating themselves from God.
On the other hand, those who are His people, elected by His grace and goodness to know His truth, will never plumb the depths of God’s goodness. After a billion years in eternity, God will still have new good things to give us, new pleasures to experience, new beauties to behold, new vistas to see. He should be worshiped, and those who come to recognize and experience His goodness cannot help but worship.
