Why did God create man if he knew some would go to hell?

This provocative question comes from a Christian who is training to be a missionary. It was good to ponder this issue about my Lord Jesus who created everything--

Colossians 1:16 For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him:

Why Were We Created?

This is a good starting point. Why were we created? Look at us--dust. What could we possibly offer God Almighty? Solomon said that the heaven of heavens cannot contain him--we are like grasshoppers in His sight. What is man that God is mindful of him? Our answer lies in the Bible which is God's word--

...thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.

Revelation 4:11

We were created for God's pleasure! Don't you know that God loves you and wants you? It was his whole purpose in creating mankind. God is our Father which is in heaven. We are his children. Let us therefore consider why fathers desire to have children: the joy of a little child, to love and be loved, to reproduce bringing someone else into the world with whom they can have fellowship, to have life in the house, etc.

But What About Hell?

Know ye not that hell was not created for people? The word of God tells us who it was created for--

...everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels:

Matthew 25:41

Hell was created for the devil and his angels. It was not created for man! God doesn't want anybody to go there, it was not his purpose for men to go there. God knew that we would sin so he made provision for us by coming to this earth in the form of a man and paying the penalty for our sins with his own blood (ref. Acts 20:28).

Nonetheless, men do indeed go to hell because they say to the Lord Jesus as the citizens in Luke 19 said to the nobleman, "We will not have this man to reign over us." When such people are cast in hell, it is literally what they asked for. Nonetheless, God is not pleased that they should perish:

As I live, saith the Lord GOD, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live: turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die...?

Ezekiel 33:11

The Lord is...not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.

2 Peter 3:9

But Was it Fair to Create Us?

Would it have been fair for me, Tracy, to miss out on knowing the Lord Jesus Christ because of the actions of the wicked that take them to hell? Would it have been fair for me to have been aborted of the opportunity to know my God and his pleasures for evermore? Would it have been fair for me to not have known love and bliss because of man's evil acts that take him to hell?

God made us and then came down here to save us so that we can live with him forever. Those that hear the voice of the Son of God, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, will repent and get saved and will live forever. Meanwhile, those that reject his voice will go to hell and eventually the lake of fire. They shall awake to shame and everlasting contempt (ref. Daniel 12:2). God hath no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but there is no place in heaven for them.

• How to Get to Heaven
• Hell is Real