How can God be good and allow evil?

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Well, it is without doubt that we have all been affected in some way by the recent events which happened this week, whether it is that we knew someone who was maybe there in Boston during the marathon.
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I had a friend who was running the marathon.
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He, thankfully, was not injured, but was there.
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But I know many of you maybe didn't have someone who was there, but you saw the news when it came down the pike.
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You saw the reality of yet another attempt at terrorism in our land, and we were reminded again about the fact that there is evil in the world.
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Evil is something that actually does exist.
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Even though there seem to be people who are unwilling to call evil evil anymore, it seems to be their entire classes of people that just refuse to even acknowledge the concept that someone might be evil.
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They try to blame it on anything else.
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They blame it on ideology.
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They blame it on mental illness.
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They blame it on anything that they can.
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They refuse to simply be honest and say that these acts are evil.
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But yet we know evil exists.
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So tonight, we're going to ask the question of why.
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Why do we see so much evil in God's world? And this is an important question.
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Earlier, as you know, I teach the kids on Wednesday afternoons at 430.
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We have our after school Bible study.
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And the question that they asked, which, interestingly enough, just happened to follow today.
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I got these questions weeks ago and put them in a list, was why do bad things happen to good people? That's obviously a question that a lot of people ask.
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We address the fact that there's no such thing as a good person.
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The Bible says there's no one good, no not one.
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There's none who speaks after God.
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There's none who understands.
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There's none righteous, no not one.
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So we address that with them.
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So we took that last part out of the sentence.
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Why do bad things happen to good people? I had it written on the board.
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I struck out to good people.
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I said, let's just cut that out and let's just ask the question, why do bad things happen? Why qualify? Because bad things happen to bad people.
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And bad things happen to people that would call themselves good.
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The Bible says there are no really, there are no actually righteous people, there are no good people.
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But the reality is the truth.
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Bad things happen.
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And that, of that, there is no doubt.
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So tonight, we're going to address even further than I did with the kids.
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With the kids, the simple answer was this.
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Bad things happen because we live in a sin fallen world.
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That was the answer of the ultimate lesson.
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Bad things happen because we live in a sin fallen world.
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So we're going to start tonight where I ended with them.
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With the Bible's turn to Genesis chapter 1.
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Genesis chapter 1 and verse 31.
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Genesis 1.31 says this.
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And God saw everything that he had made.
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And behold, it was very good.
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And there was evening and there was morning the sixth day.
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That is a simple verse, but it is profound with significance.
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It's filled with significance.
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Because it says something about the way God created the world.
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When God created the world, the Bible says the world was very good.
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That that's the way that it was.
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That that's the way that God had created it.
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Now remember, in the verse it says this was the sixth day.
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The evening of the sixth day.
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Which means not only was all of the plants created.
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Not only were all of the heavens created.
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And the waters created.
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And all of those other things created.
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But man had been created.
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And everything God had created was good.
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Now fast forward to today.
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Is everything good? No.
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We live in a world that is filled with badness.
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In fact, there is so much badness that goes on in the world.
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That we hide ourselves from it.
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We shield ourselves from it.
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Because honestly, we experienced a bombing this week.
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In one of our nation's larger cities.
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Boston.
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It shook us to our core.
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But isn't the reality that every day.
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Isn't the reality that every day in Afghanistan.
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In Iraq.
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And in other countries all over the world.
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That those bombs go off all the time.
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That the Jewish people, even today.
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Live under the constant threat of terrorism.
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Where they have school buses bombed.
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They have tour buses that are bombed.
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They have people that try to do all kinds of hated things to the Jewish people.
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There in Israel.
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To the point where a teacher cannot leave a school.
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To take their children on a field trip.
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Unless he is armed with a rifle.
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Well it's getting that way here.
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But you understand what I'm saying.
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We sort of shield ourselves from the badness.
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Of how bad it really is.
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In places like Myanmar.
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Where people are killed daily.
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For nothing more than being members of another tribe.
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Or being unwilling to bow down to a warlord.
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Whole tribes are displaced.
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The point I'm trying to make.
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Is that we've gone from that which is very good.
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To a world that is very bad.
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Would we agree that the world we live in is very bad? Now some of you may say.
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But there's good in the world.
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There's good people in the world.
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Just like Fred Rogers.
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Do you know who Mr.
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Rogers is? Fred Rogers.
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You know he made a point.
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He said you know my mother always told me.
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Anytime I see something bad happen.
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Look for the people helping.
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And it restores your faith in humanity.
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That there are people that go to help.
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You know when a bomb goes off.
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You see these police officers and firefighters running in to help.
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That restores our faith.
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That there is some good in the world.
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And that is true.
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There is still the image of God.
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That is marked on men's hearts.
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And we still do see that.
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But the reality is.
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We see real tangible evil in the world.
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And the question is why? Now as I said with the kids we answered on a simple level.
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We said we live in a fallen world.
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A sin fallen world.
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And that is why there is evil in the world.
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But you and I both know.
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If we thought it through.
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There is more to the question.
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And this is what is more.
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Why if God is righteous.
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Does he allow the existence of that evil? You see that is where the question really gets to the heart of it.
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Is not why is there evil? Well men are sinful.
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That is why there is evil.
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But the question is even further.
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And that brings us to the topic of tonight.
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It is a theological concept known as theodicy.
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How many of you have heard that term theodicy before? Richard.
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OK.
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Lee.
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A couple of you have heard the term before.
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Does anybody want to give a definition of what is theodicy? All right.
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It comes from two Greek words.
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First one is theos.
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Which is what? God.
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The other Greek word.
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OK.
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Right.
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That's what the two righteousness or justice, righteousness or justice.
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So when you discuss the subject of theodicy.
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It is an attempt to give an explanation of how God can be just and righteous in the face of the presence of pervasive sin in the world.
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That he himself created.
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How can you say God is good when God created a world which is very, very bad? Now, here's how it works in a practical level.
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I'm sitting.
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I'm talking to my atheist friend.
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This is somebody I'm making up.
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I don't have somebody in my life that I call my atheist friend.
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But I mean, I know people who are atheists, but I'm just saying, let's say I'm sitting with with Mr.
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Atheist and we're talking about God.
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He might say this.
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Is God righteous? Yes, God is righteous.
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Can God stop all evil? Sure.
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God is supreme.
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He is sovereign.
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Why doesn't that is a question of theodicy? How can he still be righteous? How can you call him righteous if he sovereignly governs a world that is filled with unrighteousness? How can you call him good if he sovereignly governs a world that is filled with evil? You see, that's the way that the atheist would ask the question.
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Some have even said that they cannot begin to believe in a God who would allow such evil.
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You've heard that.
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I'm sure you've probably heard somebody say, I couldn't believe in a God who would allow that child to die.
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Right.
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I couldn't believe in a God who would allow my mother to be taken with cancer or I couldn't believe in a God who would allow my son to die in Afghanistan.
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Now you get the picture of what theodicy is.
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That put it in more of a perspective where you've heard people say that.
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And maybe you yourself have had to face that.
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Maybe something bad has happened to you.
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And you said, how can I continue to believe in a God who allows thirty three hundred children every day to be aborted? And hey, haven't we seen just this last couple of weeks with that doctor? Where is that? Where's that? Philadelphia doctor.
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And they're trying to hide that, the atrociousness of what he was doing.
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He was doing late term abortions.
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Babies were being born alive and he was snipping them to death as they came out alive.
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Taking a pair of scissors and cutting their spinal cord so that they die.
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I mean, a monster.
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How can God allow a monster to exist? How can God let Hitler exist? Six million Jews.
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Countless gypsies and handicapped people.
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Anyone who didn't fit the Aryan system.
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Slaughtered.
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Put into gas chambers.
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Burned alive.
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Shot, killed, buried alive.
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And Hitler was only the last of many who came before him.
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Of just pure evil men.
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How can you believe in a God of love when the world is so full of hate? So that's the question.
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Now we deal with the answer.
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Because I think the answer, this is one of those questions that philosophers cannot answer.
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This is one of those questions that humanists cannot answer.
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Unless you have the God of Scripture and the whole Bible.
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Not just some God you've made up in your mind, but the God of the Bible.
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You will never come to a right answer to this question.
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So let's go through how do we answer this question.
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First of all, we must realize that evil itself is not a created thing.
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Evil itself is not a created thing and should not be thought of as such.
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It's not a created thing.
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Why is that statement important? Okay.
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That's right.
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Go ahead.
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That's right.
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He created everything very good.
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Evil is not a created thing.
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And what I'm getting across or trying to get across is that there are people who will ask the question, Why did God create evil? Because in their mind evil is something.
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Evil is tangible.
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Evil exists and is tangible.
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The problem is evil is not a created thing.
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Evil is the negation of a thing.
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It doesn't exist on its own.
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Evil is neither substance, being, spirit, nor matter.
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It is none of those things.
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It's not substance.
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It's not being.
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It's not spirit, nor is it matter.
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So technically, it's not proper to think of evil as a created thing.
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I kind of look at it like this.
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It's not an exact parallel, but let me put it like this.
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You have cold and you have hot, right? Hot is tangible.
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Cold is not.
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Because once you get to a certain point of cold, you can't get any colder.
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I think it's, what is it, negative 450 degrees Fahrenheit is absolute zero, what they call absolute zero.
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Past that, it can't get any colder.
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It's just that's it.
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And I think it's negative 450.
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I might be wrong, but it's there's a certain point that you can't get any colder because that's because we don't measure temperature by how cold it is.
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We measure temperature by how hot it is, because as heat is introduced into the atmosphere, it produces energy and the energy gets it hotter.
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So once all that energy is gone, it's zero.
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It's absolute zero.
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Can't get any less because it's not going to get any less.
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That's absolute zero.
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We can get hotter, though.
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No matter how hot something is, if more energy is introduced, it can get hotter.
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The sun is hotter than we could ever imagine.
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We get hot.
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We get our stoves nice piping hot.
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We get our water up to 212 degrees Fahrenheit, so it starts to boil.
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We think that's pretty hot.
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That water wouldn't even exist on the face of the sun because on the face of the sun, that water would both evaporate and the steam would evaporate in less than a second.
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It would just go away.
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If you were to right now be on the face of the sun, you would both melt and evaporate at one time.
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It would happen all at one time.
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Here's my point.
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When we talk about righteousness and goodness, that is something that God exudes.
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That is what he has.
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Evil is the negation of that.
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If God says something is so, and we do the opposite, we are engaging in evil.
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We are doing evil by not doing what he has said, by negating what he has said.
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I'm not saying that evil doesn't exist, but what I'm saying is that evil only exists as a negation of goodness.
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God is the standard of holiness.
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He's the standard of goodness.
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He's the standard of pureness, and anything that does not live up to that, anything that does not agree with that, is evil.
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Evil is a lack of something.
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Thus, it's not a created thing.
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It's a lack of something.
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It's the lack of purity.
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It's the lack of moral goodness.
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It's the lack of righteousness.
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Thus, it is not a creation of a good God, but the result of God being good.
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Because God is good, and everything he created is very good.
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What did man do? Man negated that goodness in the garden.
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Man refused to accept that goodness in the garden, and man brought the world down into badness.
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God is good, and everything that opposes him, we call evil.
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But again, going back to the issue, why did God create evil? God did not create evil in the sense that you think of the fact that he created the birds and the fishes and the people and all of these things.
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We don't think of evil as a created thing.
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Evil is the negation of God's command.
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Do you understand what I'm saying? It's the opposite of what God's standard is.
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Thus, it's not a created thing.
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It's an action that is done by created beings.
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Yes, sir.
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Yes, we're getting there.
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We're getting there.
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My point is that evil itself is not a created thing.
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Evil itself is an action of a created being.
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And what is the action? It's the action of sin.
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It's the action of negating what God has said.
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All right.
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So it's not a part of creation.
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It's not a created thing.
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So that's why God could say he made the world very good, because he created the world the way he wanted it.
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It was righteous.
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It was good.
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It was holy.
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It was perfect.
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It was pure.
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The people that lived in it were innocent.
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We don't call them righteous, but we call them innocent because they did not know evil.
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But yet, as soon as they took the bite of the tree, as soon as they took the bite of the fruit of the tree, they entered into evil.
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They experienced evil.
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So we understand God created the world very good when he created the world.
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It was much different than it is now.
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There were no weeds.
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There were no thorns.
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There were no harsh conditions.
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You guys realize that, right? That when God created the world, the world was different than it is now.
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We don't we there were no hurricanes in the Garden of Eden.
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There were no floods or tropical storms in the Garden of Eden.
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There wasn't even, you know what? You plant a seed, something grows.
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That's the way it worked.
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It wasn't you didn't even have to plow.
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You didn't have to do anything.
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It was there for you.
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It was God's garden that he had created.
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So not only was evil not created by God, it wasn't even introduced by God.
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Yes, that's true.
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The garden wasn't enough for them.
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They wanted more.
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They wanted to be like God, which is what we talked about in our earlier lesson.
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But you see, not only is evil not a part of God's creation, but evil wasn't even introduced by God.
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In fact, I just want us to look at a couple of scriptures to make this point.
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Because people, again, they accuse God of unrighteousness.
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And this is important that we understand that God does not even tempt anyone to evil.
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Turn to James 1.13.
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What does James 1.13 say? God cannot be tempted by evil.
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And he himself does not tempt anyone.
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James is there specifically telling us about the character of God.
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Number one, it says he cannot be tempted to evil.
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You know why that is? They're simple.
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This is very simple.
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Why can God not be tempted to evil? Because he's holy.
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Because he has power over Satan.
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That's true.
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He wouldn't be God.
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These are all correct.
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But I'm going to make it even more simple.
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I'm going to simplify it.
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Hopefully I'm going to simplify it.
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Whatever God does is right.
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Whatever is opposed to God is evil.
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God cannot be opposed to himself.
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Thus, God can't be evil.
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Do you see the simple? Whatever he does is right.
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He cannot oppose his own will.
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Thus, he cannot do evil.
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Because his will sets the standard.
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That's why if somebody says, Isn't it evil of God to send all of the Israelites in to kill every Canaanite child, man, woman, animal, and all? Isn't that evil? Not if God did it.
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Because God cannot oppose his own will.
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That'll make you think, won't it? Because from our perspective, we said, What an evil God.
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Who are you, old man, to answer back to God? Shall the thing form say to him who formed it, Why have you made me this way? Absolutely.
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God can't be in opposition to himself.
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God is always right.
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God is the standard.
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See, people think, This bothers me.
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But people often think that there is a standard of righteousness.
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We'll say this is the standard of righteousness right here.
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And God is trying to attain the standard of righteousness.
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He attains the standard of righteousness.
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No, no, no, no, no.
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God is the standard.
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There is no standard above him.
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He is the standard of righteousness.
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Whatever he does is right.
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This is why people, Is it unfair of God to elect some and not elect others? No, because that's what he did and what he does is right.
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Abraham said it.
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When Abraham was talking to God and he was sending the two angels down to Sodom because they were going to bring judgment on Sodom, Abraham said what to God? Will not the judge of the universe do right? And the answer, of course, is a rhetorical question.
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The answer is always.
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Always.
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So.
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How does that relate to what we've been talking about? Well.
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God created the world.
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The world is very good when he created it.
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James 1.13 says God cannot be tempted to evil.
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Neither does he tempt anyone.
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So if we are tempted by sin, does that temptation come from God? No.
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What are the three things that God has allowed into this world to be the temptations that we face? I know you know this one.
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No, I'm sorry.
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That's true.
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That's a little different than what that's.
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That's correct.
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But what I was thinking of is the flesh, the world and the devil.
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That's the three things that we deal with.
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All those issues of flesh, the eyes, the lust, pride and all this flesh.
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But that's the three.
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The three.
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Because people always think of it like this.
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I've mentioned this before.
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People often think of.
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The flesh and devil and the world as being like three things that we face, but it's really not the way that it works.
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That's a person.
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So is we have the flesh, which is influenced by the world, which is influenced by the devil.
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That's what it's really like.
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More so than we're getting the flesh on one side of the world, the other side of the devil.
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It's our flesh is is is influenced by the world.
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The world's influenced by the devil.
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It's sort of that's the that's the methodology.
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But that's what we face.
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We're in a battle, not against flesh and blood, but against spiritual forces.
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The Bible tells us.
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But why is all this important? Again, getting back to the question here, James tells us God never tempts us.
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God never tempts us to evil.
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So if we succumb to evil, we are succumbing to the desires of the flesh, which are influenced by the world, which is being influenced by the devil.
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OK, well, we do it because we want to fulfill that fleshly desire to be like God, to be our own autonomous leaders, to be free from God's power, from his sovereignty, from his punishment.
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One thing, if there's nothing else men want to be free from, it's God's punishment.
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That's why atheism is so attractive to so many.
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I can believe that nothing I do in this world really matters.
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Nothing I do in this world has eternal consequence.
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There is no heaven.
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There is no hell.
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Eat, drink and be merry.
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For tomorrow we die.
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That's the attitude of the atheists.
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We just do what we want to do, and tomorrow we'll be dead.
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And you know what? When I die, bury me in the backyard, because I won't be, you know, pushing up daisies.
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It doesn't matter.
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I'm dead.
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My soul's dead.
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My spirit's dead.
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Everything's dead.
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And that's the attitude, because that's the desire.
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I actually heard a man who ironically played God in two films.
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What's his name? No, I'm thinking of the black fella.
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He played in Bruce Almighty and in Evan Almighty.
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Morgan Freeman.
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Thank you.
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Saw him on Piers Morgan.
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Not my favorite individual.
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Saw him on Piers Morgan's show, and he was explaining, I am God, and you are God, and we are the governors of our own destinies, and when I die, I won't know anything.
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My life force will just go and just melt back into the universal energy.
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I mean, very, very new agey type stuff.
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Ironically, a man who played God.
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Twice.
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But that was his expression, was, I don't have to worry about anything, because when I die, I'm not going to know it.
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I'm just going to be dead.
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Huh? How convenient.
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Yes, sir.
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Man wants authority.
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He wants power.
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He wants that autonomy, baby.
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That's the problem, you know, when you argue with people about free will, they're not talking about free will.
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They're talking about autonomy.
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I want total freedom.
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Not just the ability to choose steak or french fries.
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I want full and complete autonomy.
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Yeah, I'm going to get there.
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But thank you.
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That leads right into my next question.
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James 1.13 is an important passage, because it says that God is not tempted by evil.
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Why not? Because he can't be, because everything he does is good.
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But it also says that he does not tempt us to evil.
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So what about the Old Testament, where it actually says very clearly, God tempted Abraham? Well, that is a mis...
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I'll let you answer it.
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Yes, and I think that that's a place where the King James actually mistranslated the idea.
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I think you're right, exactly.
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Is that, yes, you can use the word test and tempt.
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Interchangeably, but the idea that God did test Abraham.
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What's the difference between a temptation and a test? It's important.
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This is...
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I'm going to say it just a little different.
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That was very, very good.
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I'm going to say it just a little differently.
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A test is an opportunity to do right.
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And a temptation is an encouragement to do wrong.
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That's just to simplify it.
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A test is an opportunity to do something right.
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But a temptation is an encouragement to do something wrong.
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And that's why it can be rightfully said that God never tests.
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God gives us many opportunities to do right with Abraham and Isaac.
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He said, take your son whom thou lovest, take him to Mount Moriah, sacrifice him.
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Abraham didn't want to do that, obviously.
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But he lived up to the test and he took the dagger and he took his son and he took the wood and he made that march up Mount Moriah because he was ready to be tested by God and to pass the test.
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But don't you know, every step he took, there was the whispering mouth of the devil in his ear.
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This is not a good idea.
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What are you going to tell people? You're about to commit murder.
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This is wrong.
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This is your son.
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You've waited years for this son.
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God promised you.
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You must have misunderstood God.
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You must not really know what you're doing.
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Are you out of your gourd? What are you? I mean, you've got to think the devil's right there in his ear trying to get him to do evil.
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Right? The whole time.
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His flesh doesn't want to do it.
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The world doesn't want him to do it.
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The devil doesn't want him to do it.
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So it's a test.
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Yes, God tests us.
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And Satan tempts us to evil.
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Always.
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I'm not quite catching the question.
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Yes, we face trouble.
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Is that part of our test? I would say so.
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I would say that every day that we live is a test.
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We have tests that come in and primarily those tests are brought about by sin.
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Whether it's our own desire for sin or other people's sinful actions towards us, we have to respond in grace, even if we don't want to.
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That's a test.
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And a temptation is what? Punch him in the eye socket.
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Be mad and do something.
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Throw him on the ground and beat on him.
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That's the desire of the flesh is to have that moment of vindication.
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Go Bruce.
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I'm shuffling? Yes.
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Jesus said we must take up our cross daily and follow after him.
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Yes.
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No, that's true.
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That's true.
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But I'm saying that the devil would have been telling him this is wrong.
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This is not good.
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Let's get back to the original question of the Odyssey.
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The original question was, how can God be righteous in an unrighteous world? How can you believe in a God does who allows these bad things? Here is here's where we have to let the rubber meet the road.
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First, we say, number one, evil is not a created thing.
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God didn't create the world evil.
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In fact, the opposite is true.
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God created the world very good.
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What brought evil into the world was sin.
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Right.
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Sin brought evil into the world.
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Sin itself is evil.
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And that has brought evil into the world to this very day.
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But what we must understand is this.
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This is the this is where I'm going to finalize everything.
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This will bring everything into a nice package.
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And this is why I didn't get to with the kids.
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God is sovereign over all things.
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And that includes the evil acts of men.
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Could God have stopped Adam and Eve from eating from the tree? Could he have? Theoretically.
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Theoretically.
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How? He could not put the tree there to begin with.
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I mean, if you really want it, if you want a most a most basic understanding of how he just he put the tree there.
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He allowed Satan to go slithering his evil self into the garden.
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Right.
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So there is a sense in which God's allowing of evil is part of his overall decree.
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But let me clarify very quickly that that in no way makes God the author of evil.
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Neither does it make him the creator of evil because evil is not a created thing.
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But by the very virtue of him giving the opportunity for man's fall and the very fact that he is sovereign and all knowing and that he knew man would fall, we can say with confidence that the fall was part of the divine decree.
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Had it been, there cannot be another way.
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Because had God decreed it to be different and yet man still fell, then God is not God.
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Just ponder that for a second.
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Everybody with me? He was not surprised by Adam and Eve's fall.
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It was not an interruption of his eternal plan.
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And because he allowed it, there must have been a purpose in it.
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Because God doesn't do anything capriciously or whimsically.
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But God does everything for a purpose.
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Yeah, that's it.
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Absolutely.
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And he could have certainly have stopped that.
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He could have destroyed them all there.
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Something important is, and I'll leave you with this verse, Isaiah 48, 8 through 10.
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I'm going to write that down.
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Or 46, I'm sorry.
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Isaiah 46, 8 through 10.
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Huh? Isaiah 46, 8 through 10.
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Remember this and stand firm.
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Recall it to mind, you transgressors.
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Remember the former things of old.
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For I am God and there is no other.
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I am God and there is none like me.
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I declare the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done.
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Saying my counsel, my will, another way of saying it, my counsel shall stand and I will accomplish all my purpose.
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Beloved, we may not understand why God has allowed evil to be in the world.
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But what we must understand is this.
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God has a purpose for everything that he has decreed.
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He has a purpose for everything that he has allowed.
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And man's decisions, man's evil nature cannot frustrate God's purpose.
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Had the introduction of rebellion into the world thwarted God's purpose, God would have never allowed it.
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God is never frustrated.
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He always accomplishes his will.
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Adam's sin was no surprise and God had already set in motion that which would be the salvation for Adam's children.
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And that was what? The lamb who was slain from what? From the foundation of God already made provision for man's sin even before he had sinned.
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Because God is omniscient and sovereign and he has a purpose for everything.
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And here's how that hits the rubber, hits the road with that.
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And this is where I'll end.
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Probably the worst thing in the world that can happen to anyone is the death of a child.
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Not a few months ago, wasn't our nation stunned and taken aback by someone who was willing to go into a school and take the lives of many children? What was it that cut us so deep? I mean, we've seen mass shootings before.
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But what cut us so deep was that they were.
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They were babies, they were.
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They were so, so small, so, so helpless.
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Right.
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I've had to preach funerals for people who have lost children.
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But let me tell you this.
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I don't know what God's purpose is in letting a child die.
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But I don't think that I could maintain the faith that sustains me if I didn't believe.
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And that's why it bothers me when I hear people say, Well, God didn't have any control over that child dying.
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God didn't have any control over that automobile accident.
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God didn't have any control over that cancer.
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That was all the devil, devil, devil.
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Beloved, God is sovereign.
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We might not understand why He allows what He allows.
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But know this.
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Nothing happens without Him allowing it.
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And He doesn't allow anything that He doesn't have a purpose for.
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That's what it means to be sovereign.
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And that's what we need to understand if we are to understand how God can be just and there be evil in the world.
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God has a divine purpose.
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We don't know what it is.
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Only to say this, that in the day to come when Christ returns, there will be a reckoning.
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There will be a judgment.
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And those who are in Christ will receive mercy.
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And those who are outside of Christ will receive justice.
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No one will receive injustice.
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But at that moment, God's wrath on all of this evil will be finally and perfectly kneaded out.
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And I am just grateful that He was gracious to save me so that I will be in Christ and shielded.
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And as always, I pray the same for you.
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Let's pray.
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Father, thank you for this time again to have studied your word.
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I thank you for just the relevancy of it and how we can deal with it and deal with subjects which are so hard and so difficult.
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And Father, I just pray that you would encourage us now as we go from this place and use this time of study to draw us closer to you.
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In Jesus' name, Amen.