Addressing The Problem of Evil

Alpha & Omega Ministries

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Welcome to The Dividing Line. I'm Pastor Dan Cofessi. I'll be your host this morning.

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We're broadcasting from Phoenix, Arizona, and I'm delighted to be with you here this morning.

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I've been given liberty to choose the subject, so I've chosen the subject of the problem of evil, which, as most of you likely know, is a main issue for us as we share the gospel with our neighbors, and with our children, and with people suffering, and with atheists, and as we work through it both intellectually—it's an intellectual struggle for us— classically stated, you know, if God is good and all -powerful, how can evil exist in the world?

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And since evil exists, the Christian God, whom we claim is good and all -powerful, cannot exist.

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That's the basic problem. That's the intellectual problem.

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However, there's also an experiential problem, and many people cannot state the intellectual problem who have the experiential problem, and when we're dealing with this subject, we need to avoid cold -hearted treatments of this matter.

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Not that we shouldn't set our emotions aside to properly discuss the matter intellectually—we need to do that— but this is an extremely practical, experiential problem for pastors, and for churches, and for any

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Christian ministering to virtually anybody in a world that's filled with evil, and it's not a compromise.

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It's not a compromise to feel and express emotion when dealing with this subject.

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Now, of course, atheists manipulate people emotionally with their arguments.

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I can remember—I forget who it was—debating James, and most of his arguments, many of them were emotional.

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One of them was, anybody who walks through a children's hospital and sticks their head in the rooms on the various floors, how can they believe that the

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Christian God exists? And a very emotional argument. In our own congregation, as I speak, we have four children under the age of 15 that are facing major, major physical issues, and so the atheists will emotionally manipulate us about these subjects.

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So we have to be careful. It's not just an intellectual thing. But at the same time, we have to have a solid, intellectual, theological foundation to address this denial of our

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God. My approach this morning is going to be to give us three aspects of a solution to this problem of evil, at least intellectually.

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Solving the problem intellectually is easier than solving it experientially when we face it. So I will be somewhat just intellectual this morning, and I will do this in a reverse historical approach, beginning with the present and working our way back to the garden, where ultimately these discussions lead.

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I have a few definitions very quickly up here this morning. The meaning of evil in the

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Bible, we're talking about moral evil, that is the breaking of God's commandments.

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We can call that the violation of God's preceptive will. I use the phrase moral evil, and then we have calamity evil described in the

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Bible. That is suffering caused by natural disasters, by war, pestilence, personal tragedy, calamity evil.

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Two meanings for the will of God here this morning. God's perceptive will, expressed as in in his commandments.

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Do this, don't do that. Like Ephesians 5 .18, this is the will of God for you.

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And God's sovereign will, that is his desire regarding whatsoever things come to pass.

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Ephesians 1 .11, of course, is a classic text that God works all things after the counsel of his will.

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And Daniel 4 .35, I believe most of this audience knows that text.

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So we have God's perceptive will and God's sovereign will, and we've got moral evil in the world, and we've got a calamity evil suffering.

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Now, a comment I want to make, along the way, I will point out that if one's theology is weak regarding the sovereignty of God over evil of both kinds, one cannot adequately answer the atheist problem of evil.

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That's one of the messages I'd like to get across today, is if we compromise on the sovereignty of God, we will not have a robust intellectual argument regarding the the problem of evil.

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So let's let's get right into it. The first aspect of the solution to the problem of evil is this, sinners deserve to suffer.

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Nobody likes to hear that, but the atheist syllogism is based on an unexpressed assumption that those suffering don't deserve to suffer.

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Everybody I've ever encountered on this problem has that intellectual assumption that those suffering don't deserve to suffer.

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Well, we know that Scripture rejects this assumption and teaches the opposite.

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God bringing calamity upon those who deserve judgment is a moral good, and God commits no moral evil when he uses evil to inflict righteous judgment upon those who deserve to suffer.

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And Scripture, of course, is full of this. Isaiah 9 and verse 8, the

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Lord sent a word against Jacob, and it has fallen on Israel. All the people will know,

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Ephraim and the inhabitant of Samaria, who say in pride and arrogance of heart, the bricks have fallen down, but we will rebuild with hewn stone.

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The sycamores are cut down, but we will replace them with cedars. Therefore the

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Lord shall set up adversaries of resin against him and spur his enemies on.

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So God actively brings about the evil of calamity against Israel, the

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Syrians before and the Philistines behind. They shall devour

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Israel with an open mouth, for all this his anger is not turned away.

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Calamity. Isaiah 10 verse 5, woe to Assyria, the rod of my anger and the staff in whose hand is my indignation.

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Assyria becomes the rod and the axe in the very hand of God to inflict suffering on those who deserve to suffer.

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Assyria gets reproved. Let's move forward a little more quickly. And here's a great statement having to do with the problem of evil.

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For though your people are Israel, be as the sand of the sea, a remnant of them will return in this statement.

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The destruction decreed shall overflow with righteousness.

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And so we're right here at the very crux of this issue about the problem of evil.

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There's a destruction that is going to inflict misery beyond conception for most.

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And yet this destruction overflows with righteousness. So when you tell people this, they get angry.

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And they get angry that people deserve to suffer.

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But if evil is inflicted as righteous judgment, all supposed problems in these cases evaporate.

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It overflows with righteousness. There's no problem here. The problem evaporates.

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But if in God's world people suffer meaninglessly and at random, and not as a result of his sovereign will, then we would have a cause to question either

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God's power or his righteousness. Now once they're really angry and before they storm out of the pew or your personal conversation, you immediately go to the cross.

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And this is what you tell them. The ultimate proof that sinners deserve to suffer is the cross.

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The cross should stop our mouths from resisting the fact that we deserve to suffer.

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Look there. Understand what is going on on the cross.

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And there you will learn that we deserve to suffer, and that humanity deserves to suffer.

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So that's the only way to diffuse the hatred that comes out of the human heart regarding this matter, is you present the cross right up front and the doctrine of propitiation at the cross.

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And that's what stops our mouths. And nobody will ever accept the

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Bible's answer, God's answer, to this problem until they accept the true doctrine of the cross.

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So that's where I always go. We've got to go right there regarding this matter that humanity deserves to suffer.

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If there's any proof of that, it's the biblical doctrine of the Son of God on the cross. So you go right there when we deal with this people deserve to suffer.

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Now let's go on. However, there are some individuals who suffer that don't deserve to suffer.

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Yes, are there any? There sure are. Jesus for one. Those who are justified in the sense of Romans don't deserve to judicially suffer, and people also suffer for righteousness sake.

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So the atheist returns to his syllogism and says, all

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I need is one case of someone suffering who doesn't deserve to suffer to disprove the existence of the

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Christian God. How can he allow anyone to suffer for righteousness sake when he has the power to prevent it, and he stands by and does nothing?

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He's either not all -powerful, or he's corrupted. You know, he's like the guy who stands on the street corner and watches his neighbor gets beaten to a pulp and doesn't do anything.

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Wasn't his fault. That guy may have even been righteous, and God sits there and watches him get beat to a pulp.

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So all I need is one instance of that, and your God doesn't exist.

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So we need to go further. Here's the second aspect of the solution.

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Part one, two parts here. It's not unjust for God to use evil to promote good.

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And at this point in the argument, another concept must be introduced. God not only defines moral evil,

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God defines what is good, and this is a warfare of definitions that we're in as believers.

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He also defines what is good, and the Lord defines the greatest good.

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And if he has seen fit to use suffering to promote the good of the class of people we are now considering, and to promote the greatest good, we have no right to stand in judgment of his methods.

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Psalm 119, the psalmist says, it's good that I was afflicted, that I might learn your law.

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The Son of God even learned obedience. I keep looking over here at Rich. He's my only audience.

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The Son of God. Hebrews 5 says he learned obedience through the things that he suffered, and that made him the perfect Savior for us.

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So God has the most righteous of all persons learning obedience, not in the sense that he didn't know how to obey, but learning what it means to experience obeying

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God in the context of suffering for righteousness, so that he would become the perfect Savior for us.

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This is how God works, and God's not committing moral evil in producing a good end from suffering.

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Romans 8 28 through 30, of course, God works all things together for good, and he works the evil things together for good.

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I mean that that list at the end of Romans there is a list of evil things, isn't it?

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Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness.

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I've never been naked. Peril, sword. This is all calamity evil produced by moral evil.

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Both kinds of evil in that list. But it's God who causes all these evil things to work for the believer's good.

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The sovereign activity of God ensures a good outcome.

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Now, if God were not ruling, actively ruling, over the evils in a believer's life, willing and causing every evil to produce the good that he intends for his child, then, then we would have to face the atheist problem of evil.

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If God wasn't sovereign over those four children, then we'd have to face the atheist problem of evil.

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But praise God, we don't have to because he is. We would have to question either the power of the love of a

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Christian God who could not keep his children from such harm, or if he could but chose not to, how could he truly love them?

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Then again, maybe he does not know all things and is unaware that they are suffering.

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Maybe he's not omniscient, and what of their supposed forgiveness and insurance of no punishment for their sins?

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If they are forgiven, their suffering must be unjust, and this

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God is impotent, or this God is impotent to enforce justice in his world.

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If they've been justified in their suffering, even for his own children.

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Here's the point. A belief system which refuses to acknowledge

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God's exhaustive rule over evil and insists that evil is the result of random events or events outside of God's will cannot answer the atheist charge.

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God must be impotent, unrighteous, uncaring.

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Perhaps he's not omniscient. Or some combination of all four. It's not an issue just about God's power.

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It's an issue about all the character of God is called into question here. But praise

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God, he is not. We can believe Romans 8 28 through 30 because God is sovereign over both categories of evil, and he is producing the greater good.

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But there's a second aspect of the solution here, part two of the second aspect.

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Also, it's not unjust for God to use evil to promote the greatest good.

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In the case of those suffering who do not deserve to suffer, since God causes suffering to work for their good, the problem of evil in regard to this case also disappears.

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Proceeding one step further, if we consider the greatest good in relation to either group, the group that deserves to suffer or the group that doesn't deserve to suffer, if we consider the greatest good, it becomes even clearer that the problem of evil is not a problem when we use biblical definitions for good.

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The Bible strongly asserts that the greatest good and the most important thing in the universe is the glory of God.

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God will not compromise it, he does not compromise it, and that's why there's a

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Son of God on a cross. God's purpose in saving his people is to glorify himself.

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Scripture is full of this. I won't spend the time of going through it. It's all over in Scripture.

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That is the greatest, the greatest good. Ephesians 3 .10,

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we will look at this. The church is on display as a means of making known to the principalities and the powers the manifold wisdom of God, and God commits no crime against his church, including her suffering, using her for this greater good.

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Let's look at Ephesians 3 and verse 10.

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God is speaking, Paul is speaking of the Lord's work here with his church to the intent that now the manifold wisdom of God might be made known by the church to the principalities and the powers in the heavenly places according to the eternal purpose which he accomplished in Christ Jesus our

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Lord. So the Lord is using his church to manifest his manifold wisdom to the principalities and the powers in the heavenly places, not as a secondary thought, not as a plan

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B, according to the eternal purpose which he accomplished in Christ Jesus our

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Lord. And Scripture is full of this doctrine. God is committing no crime against us and using our suffering to promote his glory.

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Doubly so, since we know from other Scripture that in doing so God has ensured that his people will share in his glory through Christ.

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This purpose is no afterthought. It's his eternal purpose. We know the examples in Scripture, don't we?

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Job. The Lord can apparently do this and he doesn't have to tell us the details.

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The whole book of Job is this issue. God is using Job for his glory, putting him on display to the principalities and the powers.

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What a glorious display it is when the story is completed. That's going to be the case for every believer's life.

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Every believer's life is going to contribute to this glorious display of who

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God is and and his power and his grace. And every believer is going to share in that glory when the story is over.

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John chapter 9. You can show this to unbelievers and this really raises the hackles.

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Now as Jesus passed by he saw a man who was blind from birth. That's an evil, isn't it?

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That's a calamity evil. Imagine mom and dad when they look at their child.

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Something doesn't seem right, honey. What's wrong with our baby?

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And they begin to shed tears. He's blind. Our baby's blind.

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That's a calamity, isn't it? It sure is. And the disciples, they don't understand.

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And the disciples ask him saying, Rabbi, who sinned? This man or his parents?

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That he was born blind. Boy, they were really ready to confront the problem of evil, weren't they? Compassionate guys they were.

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Let's not be like them. That's what they asked. That's how they thought.

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They thought the only reason people suffer is because they're sinners. Well, sometimes people suffer and it's not because they're sinners.

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Jesus answered, neither this man nor his parents sinned, but that the works of God should be displayed in him.

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There. Not a problem. We have an experiential problem working through it, but we don't have an intellectual problem against the

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God revealed in Scripture. So, summarizing, there is no problem of evil when

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God orders evil to produce both the good of his people and the greatest good of his glory.

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However, we must go further in dealing with this.

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So, how can the entrance of evil into the world be consistent with the existence of an all -powerful and all -good

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God? You see, up to this point, we've considered all people in a fallen world over which

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God rules and in which evil is present. The problem of evil doesn't appear as great as it did when the atheists first threw it up in our faces.

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However, how should we understand the entrance of evil into the world?

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How are we going to understand this? You know, I've stated, if it can be demonstrated that those suffering deserve to suffer, then in all such cases, the problem of evil is not a problem.

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But if there was a time in our history when there was no one who deserved to suffer, what do we do then?

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Christians claim that God created everything and it was very good, including

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Adam and Eve, who did not deserve to suffer. Adam and Eve, as created, did not deserve to suffer.

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So this raises the question, why did God not prevent them from sinning?

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But even more perplexing, He seems to have done the opposite. Whose idea was it to put the tree in the garden?

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That wasn't Adam and Eve's idea. The Lord created the tree of knowledge, good and evil.

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Put it right there, right in the middle of the garden. There it is, right there. It was His idea.

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I mean, is this some kind of evil joke? He did it. He put it in the garden.

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And so, the atheists' last challenge—I have a question mark there because they never have a last challenge until the

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Holy Spirit changes their hearts. But intellectually, regarding this argument, the last, perhaps, valid challenge, based on his assumptions, but it won't be his last challenge.

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The atheists may concede that if all humans, since the

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Fall, are as evil and deserving of punishment as the Bible says, and the good of those whose sins have been forgiven is ultimately secured by God permitting and supervising evil to this end, and in this whole situation, the greatest good is promoted, then it is logical that God can be both all -powerful and all -good.

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He may concede all of that, and that testimony of Scripture is logically tight.

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But at this point in the debate, the atheist who is seeking to deny the existence of the

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Christian God will bring up the case of Adam and Eve. The Christian faith asserts that God created and that he placed a tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the garden.

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And it's never good when the atheist has to remind Christians of what God has done. We need to be prepared, and when we preach to people and teach to people, we need to ask the questions that are already always in their minds.

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And of course, this question comes up when someone reads the biblical history right away. God put it in there.

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So the atheist returns with vigor to his original challenge.

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Either God was incapable of preventing the entrance of sin into the world, or if he was capable and did not prevent the entrance of evil, then he must be evil or duplicitous himself.

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He must be like us. He's corrupted. After all, he's the one who planted the tree.

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So my notes now say let's return to the role play. I've done a role play of this whole subject with Shep.

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He's a brother that affectionately takes the role of the atheist or the

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Arminian or whatever we're discussing. We call him skeptical. He's nicknamed Shep, and there's a role play on this whole matter.

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Well, how do we deal with this entrance question? Well, there's three inadequate explanations regarding the entrance of evil in the world that I'd like to talk about.

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There's dualistic proposals. Not many somewhat orthodox

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Christians go there, but the world is full of these dualistic ideas, and many of these philosophies or religions, evil is believed to have existed eternally right alongside of a good

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God. Star Wars is a dualism philosophy for the masses.

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All our culture got educated in dualism through the Star Wars series.

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They got into a philosophy class without knowing that. Isn't that somewhat disgusting?

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I think it is. They got into a unbelieving philosophy class without knowing it.

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Both the good and the evil, the yin and the yang are eternal, and neither is decidedly more powerful.

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Well, the scriptures decidedly reject any such notion that anything other than God is eternal.

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The scriptures teach that all things except God himself were created by him and were initially very good when they came from his hand, and that the distance in power between God and all things created is so vast that all comparisons are meaningless.

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Isaiah chapter 40. That's what scripture teaches. That's the God that scripture reveals.

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Any number divided by infinity is zero in regards to God's power.

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So there's no dualistic thinking in the scriptures or in Jesus Christ.

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So we discard that solution. We're not Christians if we have that solution.

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A second solution is this idea—powerful creator but impotent governor.

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Many think that God is a powerful creator, but he's impotent in his governing. They affirm that God and his initial creation are very good, but the creation got beyond his control.

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The rebellion occurred either when he was not watching, like when the kids get into trouble, you're not omniscient.

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So he's either not omniscient, and that's when the rebellion occurred, or he couldn't restrain his out -of -control creatures for whatever reason.

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Maybe it was immoral to restrain them, perhaps. Maybe God has that human doctrine of freedom that it's immoral to restrain someone from committing evil because of the sacredness of their free will.

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Good creation, impotent governor. No, the scripture doesn't reveal that.

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God is represented that he desires—God's desires continue to be overruled by the creatures he created.

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They get their way. God doesn't. This theology is seen in expressions like, God wants to, but he can't, or if you don't,

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God can't. In this theology, the will of the creature is ultimately supreme and becomes the explanation for the problem of evil.

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A lot of people believe this. Sadly, a lot of Christians seem to believe this.

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A study of the Bible's teaching on the knowledge and the power of God shows us that this is an unsatisfactory solution.

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God does know all things, all the time, and he knows them ahead of time, from eternity past.

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He knew his creatures would rebel before he created them, yet he chose to create them, and so we have to let that sink in.

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He knew they would rebel before he created them, yet he proceeded to create them.

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He also has the right and the ability to persuade any creature to obedience or restrain any creature from disobedience.

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He has the right and the power to do this. We know he did this in Genesis with the

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Bimelech. He restrained a Bimelech from touching Sarah so a Bimelech would not sin against him.

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We know he did this when he converted Saul on the road to Damascus.

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He has the power to do this. We know that when he regenerates people in Ezekiel, he says,

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I will cause you to keep my commandments. He works in you to both will and do for his good pleasure.

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So these kind of answers are not answers at all because God knows all things.

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He has the right to restrain his creatures when he pleases, and he has the power to do so.

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So this second answer, this second approach, it erodes the faith of anyone seriously trying to unconditionally trust

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God in all situations. Not only is the world full of evil, it's full of out -of -control evil.

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Not even God has control of it. That's the problem with the hyper -Arminian and even the

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Arminian answers. You bet. The world's a very dangerous place even for the

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Christian because it's full of out -of -control evil.

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Scripture doesn't say that. The third superficial answer has been this.

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Men and angels must be given freedom to do evil if their love and obedience to God is to be genuine.

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You hear this all the time. Well, this very popular idea states that God desired to create creatures that would love and serve him.

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And unless they were capable—that's an important word in this discussion—unless they were capable of and free to hate and disobey him, then their love and obedience to him would be cheap.

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It wouldn't be genuine. So therefore, he had to create them and allow them to rebel against him and hate him so that some of us that might take the other choice would really sincerely love him.

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I'm supposed to be compassionate. You can hear it in my tone of voice. It's kind of a—it is a disgusting idea.

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It just is. There's no compelling reason to think that if one does not have the ability to hate, this somehow cheapens or limits his ability to love.

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Jesus could not hate or disobey the

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Father. Was his love and obedience to the Father cheapened?

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And when you and I are finally conformed to the image of Christ so that at last we can only love what is good, is our love suddenly going to be cheapened?

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I don't think so. It's going to be finally what it ought to be. So the same is true for the saints in glory.

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This is no answer at all, and it's sad to see so many people—it's one thing to see the unregenerate accept this when you hear this discussion among the unregenerate, but it's sad to see

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Christians accepting this idea. This false idea is based on the mistaken notion that freedom is the ability to do moral opposites.

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Here we are, the battle of definitions again. Freedom is not the ability to do moral opposites.

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If this were true, then none of the persons of the Trinity are free, right? They don't have the ability to sin, and none of the saints in glory are free, and so forth.

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For a person created in the image of God, to do an act freely means he does the act willingly from his own heart without external constraint.

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That's freedom, without coercion. That's to do an act freely. Christ always obeyed the

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Father that way. He obeyed the Father without coercion.

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He did it freely and willingly. So this whole idea here is based on mistaken notions about the definition of freedom as well.

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So these three things are totally inadequate. So we're going now to the third aspect of the solution.

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God willed and planned to allow evil as the means of promoting the greatest good.

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Scripture is not nearly as silent on this subject as many think. The answer given in Scripture is that God planned and permitted evil as a means of displaying and promoting his glory.

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And there are aspects of God's character and wisdom and power that would have not been displayed unless evil were present in the world.

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And let's look at some of these answers scripturally. Proverbs 16, verse 4, even the wicked have been made by God for his purposes.

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God will be glorified in the day of doom and in the destruction of the wicked.

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Proverbs 16, verse 4, the Lord has made all things for himself.

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Really, all? We've got to make sure we get it. Yes, even the wicked for the day of doom.

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They have been created with a purpose, even the wicked for the day of doom.

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And as we study the larger body of Scripture, we realize that God will be glorified through their destruction.

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And we don't revel in that. But we're not ashamed of what

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God does. Interestingly, they're going to glorify the

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Son. John chapter 5, 21 through 23. We got time.

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Let's pull that up. John 5, 21 through 23 here. For as the

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Father raises the dead and gives life to them, even so the Son gives life to whom he will.

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For the Father judges no one but has committed all judgment to the

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Son. The doom of Proverbs 16, 4, ultimately is going to be brought to pass by the suffering exalted

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Son. Why has the Father done this? The Father judges no one but has committed all judgment to the

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Son. Here's the purpose. That all should honor the

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Son. Just as they honor the Father. The Father is jealous for the honor of his

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Son. So he worked out a plan of redemption that his Son would be vastly humiliated and suffer and be mistreated.

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So that you and I could escape that condemnation. But before this is done, the

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Son is going to be highly exalted and honored above every name that can be named.

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And part of that exaltation of the Son is the doom of the wicked in Proverbs 16, 4.

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That's what God has done. And the sooner we honor the Son, the better off we will be.

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Scripture answers this question. Philippians 2, 9 through 11.

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You know the passage. Therefore God has also highly exalted him and given him a name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven and those on the earth and those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is

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Lord, to the glory of God the Father. So believing, unbelieving.

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Every knee will bow and do what? Confess to the greatest good, to the glory of God the

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Father. Revelation 14, 6 through 7.

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Let's go there. Then I saw another angel flying in the midst of heaven, having an everlasting gospel to preach to those who dwell on the earth, to every nation, tribe, tongue, and people, saying with a loud voice,

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Fear God and give glory to him. Since when have you heard anybody define the gospel this way?

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This is a definition of the gospel. The gospel, of course, is more than this, but any gospel that doesn't include it.

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It's not really the good news. The good news is simply not about us.

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The good news is the greatest good in God's world will be accomplished. The good news is

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Jesus is going to be glorified and the Father is going to be glorified.

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That's good news. The hymn says, right, Jesus takes the highest station. Oh, what joy the sight affords.

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That's good news. Fear God, give glory to him, for the hour of his judgment has come.

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And worship him who made heaven and earth and the sea and the springs of water.

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Why do we fear him and give glory to him? Right there. Proverbs 16, 4. For the hour of his judgment has come.

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God is worthy of glory through his judgments. I'm surprised this passage, 1

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Corinthians 1, 18 -21, doesn't get more mileage in this problem of evil discussion because of what it says.

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Let's read it. Proverbs 1, 18.

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For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing. It doesn't mean it's not of profit.

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It's foolishness to those who are perishing. But to us who are being saved, it is the power of God. I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.

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Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this age? Has not

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God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world, through wisdom, did not know

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God. It pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe.

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Now, did you hear what he said? This verse 21 teaches that the world's failure to know

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God via its own wisdom was

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God's wise plan. For since, in the wisdom of God—let's go back to the text.

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I'm not used to sitting down like this. Let's go back to the text.

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This was God's wise plan right here.

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For since, in the wisdom of God, the world, through wisdom, did not know

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God. That was his plan and purpose.

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It was wise for God. It was an act of God's wisdom that he created a world that, through its own wisdom, did not know

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God. That's what this passage says. That's the answer. That's part of the answer to the problem of evil.

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This situation was not an accident or a mistake which necessitated a plan

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B. It pleased God to do it this way. It was plan

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A from the beginning, and a means of God displaying his wisdom.

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You know how Romans 11 ends. It's parallel with Colossians 121 here.

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God dealing with Jew and Gentile and hardening, a hardening of Israel that the

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Gentiles may come in, and this whole plan of redemption. Paul ends up in an expression of worship and praise about the unsearchable wisdom of God past finding out and what he's done to glorify himself and redeem us rebels in the process.

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So Scripture is addressing that very question. And then, of course,

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Romans 9, 17 through 23 addresses the whole matter directly.

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But it's not the only text. It's a very important text on this subject.

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Romans 9, 17 down there through 23, for Scripture says to Pharaoh, for this very purpose

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I have raised you up, that I may show my power in you, and that my name may be declared in all the earth.

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It was intentional, not plan B. Therefore, he has mercy on whom he has mercy, on whom he wills.

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And on whom he wills, he hardens. You will say then to me, why does he still find fault?

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For who has resisted his will? But indeed, O man, who are you to reply against God?

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Will the thing formed say to him who formed it? Why have you made me like this?

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Verse 21, does not the potter have power over the clay?

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From the same lump to make one vessel for honor and another for dishonor.

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What if God, wanting to show his wrath and make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath prepared for destruction?

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And that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy which he had prepared beforehand for glory.

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What if? Does God have the right? Yes, he has the right to do that.

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He has the right to do that. Verse 17 addressed the supposed problem of God allowing evil to exist in the world.

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Pharaoh. Allowing is too weak of a term for Paul.

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Paul says, for this very purpose, I, the Lord, have raised you up.

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The Lord himself says that. God raised up this tyrant as a means of displaying his name in all the earth.

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God had to harden this tyrant because God wanted a bigger fight. There were ten plagues.

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There were ten gods down there in Egypt that needed to be judged. So, Pharaoh couldn't release them after the first six plagues.

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There were more gods that needed to be judged and shown to be impotent. So, the

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Lord hardened his heart. The argument, in quote, with objectors is, in Romans 9, since no one can resist

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God's will, does God have the right to use

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Pharaoh and Esau in these ways and still find them guilty for their rebellion?

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That's the objection in Romans 9. Since no one can resist the sovereign will of God, does

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God have the right to use them in their rebellion and still condemn them?

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Well, the potter illustration in verse 21 is very easy to understand, and the potter has the right over the clay.

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Difficult to accept. And notice what the text says, to make from the same lump.

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In other words, there's no difference between the clay and that lump.

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The potter takes that lump, that clay is homogeneous, and out of that lump he pulls an

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Esau, and out of that lump he pulls a Jacob. There's no difference.

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That's Paul's argument. To make from the same lump, vessel for glory, vessel for wrath.

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That's what the Scripture teaches. Pharaoh's an example. The expected answer to the long question as part of verses 22 through 24 is, he has the right to do so.

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Why has he done so? To show his wrath, and to make his power known, and to make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy.

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And if you're struggling with the problem of evil, I urge you to go to the

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Scriptures for answers, and go to the cross. I have more to say, and I'm not just speaking intellectually.

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So here's a summary at this point. These six passages are divine revelation which directly addresses the question, why did

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God permit the entrance of evil into the world? God planned and permitted the fall to ensure a greater display of his glory before the angels and the men he created.

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The solution to the problem of evil is to unashamedly—you know, the

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Lord's not ashamed of his behavior in the Old or the

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New Testament. He's not ashamed. And it's so sad to see Christians cower and become ashamed when the atheist or the hardened unbeliever hurls these kind of objections.

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There's no need to cower. There's no need to be ashamed. The Lord's not ashamed of his activity, and neither should we be.

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And when you bring the doctrine of the cross in, you say, you know, you complain that sinners deserve to suffer.

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God has given you an out. Don't sit here and tell me that you're complaining that sinners deserve to suffer.

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When the Father gave his Son so that you could humble yourself and fall down before him and ask for mercy and receive it, and complain to me that people suffer, and complain against my

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God who's been so good to you so that you could hear the gospel and so that I could, that's how you answer it.

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You answer it intellectually, and you answer it by the cross. And we can't allow the liberals, the

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Protestant liberals, to deny the doctrine of the cross. You see what's happening?

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When the Protestant liberals deny the doctrine of the cross, they undercut this whole subject that sinners deserve to suffer.

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They undercut the whole thing that suffering is righteous. It's a righteous act of God.

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And when they undermine the doctrine of the cross, they're undermining the defense regarding the problem of evil or sidetracking.

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So the solution to the problem of evil is to unashamedly—that's the word that sent me off—unashamedly set forth the

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Bible's teaching that God sovereignly rules over all evil for his righteous purposes of, one, judgment.

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Sinners deserve to suffer. Two, the good of his people. Three, the greatest good, his glory.

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Now here's some applications. I'll go back to the intellectual side here.

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Religious views which deny that God's sovereign will extends to evil cannot adequately answer the atheist objections.

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Theologies which infer that evil is either outside of God's sovereign will and cannot be associated with his purposes for good represent

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God as running behind or alongside of a world out of control.

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Evil attains an independence equal with God, and this is dualism at its root.

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Most weakened evangelical Christians with our weakened theology that we lament are dualists at the root.

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God is represented as running behind or alongside a world that's out of control.

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And evil has attained an independence equal with God. That's just dualism.

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In this out -of -control world, God is trying to do cleanup and salvage some good out of an unfortunate situation.

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The atheist point that the omnipotent Christian God cannot exist is conceded in these unbiblical theologies.

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A weaker God might exist, but that was never the atheist challenge.

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You need to understand the true atheist challenge is not that some weaker

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God or some multiple deities exist. The atheist challenge is that the

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Christian God, at least historic Christianity, that that God described in historic

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Christianity does not exist. Sure, a weaker God might exist in this scenario of ours, but that's not the challenge we're here refuting.

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If such a weaker God exists, however, it is unreasonable to expect people to unreservedly trust in such an impotent

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God. Reasonable people would get busy saving and protecting themselves, and the amount of prayer that certain churches do and our nation does reflects this, doesn't it?

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For in a world filled with out -of -control evil, evil which doesn't serve

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God's purposes, such a God could not be unconditionally relied upon in all situations.

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Can those parents who give birth to a blind child, can they unconditionally rely on a good and all -powerful

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God? They certainly can, but not if we have this theology that represents him as impotent or not omniscient.

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Such a God could not be unconditionally relied upon in all situations. If he couldn't or wouldn't stop evil in the past, why should we trust him to be able to do so in the future for our good and our glory?

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You see, a learned atheist will exploit these weaknesses in the Armenian representation of God and conclude that there is no compelling reason to believe in such a

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God. One is left with a God he cannot fully trust, at least not in the world we live in filled with out -of -control, that's the key phrase, out -of -control evil.

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And if this God cannot fully be trusted, why should we obey him?

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He might be a nice guy, but not someone to render a total trust and obedience to, for this would be unreasonable.

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This is the argument that the atheists confront our children with and the younger generation and our kids that are in college.

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This is the argument. We need to be ready and up to responding, both graciously but intellectually and theologically robust.

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And we need to be able to do it with compassion. I'm done.

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I just got the I from Rich. Let's see, I'm supposed to tell you about Sovereign Grace Bible Church.

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We're in downtown Phoenix, kind of west -central Phoenix. We're blessed with our location to deal with all kinds of evil and calamity in the world and see the grace of God use that evil and calamity and overcome that evil and calamity in our lives and in the lives of the people that live around this church.

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Our website is Sovereign Grace Phoenix. No, we've got a new website, sgbcphx .org.

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That was our first name, sgbcphx .org.

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On that website, you'll actually find a whole paper on the problem of evil. It's much broader than what we've gone over here in this hour.

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And you'll also find a set of role plays between Shkep and I, Shkep and Doulos, on some practical issues and on theological issues on the videos on that website.

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It's been a delight to be able to have this opportunity to share this with you.

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And may God bless you as you contemplate how great the

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Lord is. Just remember, go to the cross sooner on many issues.

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Powerful apologetic if you do that, and it will diffuse arguments.