Why Does God Allow Evil and Suffering? | Theocast

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If God is both sovereign and good, why is it that he allows evil and suffering in the world?

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These are questions we ask a lot of times. For me personally, living in Asheville, North Carolina, we've just gone through a hurricane.

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So there's a lot of us here who are asking those questions. Today, John and I have a conversation about this, and we acknowledge that we don't have specific answers to the specific questions.

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The secret things do belong to the Lord, but we're gonna talk about God, his power, his character, his nature, his love for us, and the things that we know about him that are anchors for our souls when everything else is giving way.

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We hope the conversation encourages you and gives you hope. Stay tuned. If you're new to Theocast, you may not have heard of this word.

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It's called pietism. You ever felt like the Christian life is a heavy burden versus rest and joy, that you wake up worrying about how well you're gonna perform instead of thinking about what

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Christ has done for you? It's dread versus joy, really. That's pietism. Pietism causes

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Christians to look in on themselves and find their hope, not in what Christ has done, but what they're doing.

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And we have a little book for you. It's free. We want you to download it, and we're gonna explain the difference between pietism and what we call confessionalism,

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Reformed theology, really, how it is that we walk by faith, seeing the joy of Christ, and when

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Jesus says, come to me and I will give you rest, what does that look like? You can download it on our website.

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Just go to theocast .org. Welcome to Theocast, encouraging weary pilgrims to rest in Christ.

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And at times, that's you and me, Justin, as well, conversations about the Christian life from a

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Reformed perspective. Our aim today is to pull the clutter off the gospel and really emphasize

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Christ and what is the purpose of the kingdom. So that's what we're gonna be doing today. Your hosts are

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Justin Perdue, pastor of Covenant Baptist Church in Asheville, North Carolina, and I'm John Moffitt. I'm the pastor of Grace Reformed Church in Spring Hill, Tennessee.

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And most of the world probably knows that there was almost a once -in -a -lifetime disaster, flood in Justin's city.

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This is why his camera is on FaceTime, where he doesn't have internet. We're trying to make recording work.

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But Justin, first of all, it's been good to talk to you this week. Number two, it's good to try and put together a podcast, my friend.

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Talk to us. How are you doing? How's your church doing? It's good to know that Covenant Baptist is still there in Asheville.

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Yeah, man. Like you said, there's a lot that's changed.

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You and I have been able to keep in touch a little bit over recent weeks. I guess the first thing

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I would say is thankful that all of our members are alive and well.

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A number of people have experienced significant material loss, obviously, and there's gonna be, even in our own church, it's hard to say exactly what this is gonna look like over the coming weeks and months.

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For our city, what is this gonna look like over the coming months and years? I don't know that we all know.

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And I was telling you, John, earlier, one of the things that's really strange for me this week is, you know, because we're coming up on, the end of this week will be three weeks since the hurricane hit, and there's been a lot going on.

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You know, like phase one, it's like, is everybody alive? You know, and we can't communicate, and that was wild in and of itself.

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And then it's like, all right, phase two, we're assessing damage and whose house is gone or whatever, like that kind of thing.

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And then you're like, all right, who's got trees on their houses and trees on their cars and who's cut off from access?

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I mean, you get it. It's just been a whirlwind of things. And then in the last week or so, week and a half, we've had relief crews here.

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The area, just for people to know, I mean, this is not gonna be timely because this podcast is gonna come out a few weeks from now, but I mean, we've been well -supplied, so encouraged,

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I am, in our churches by all of the messages, the emails that we're able to receive, all of the support, the love, the prayers.

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I mean, John, I have no doubt that we had hundreds of congregations praying for our church specifically and Sunday services for weeks.

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I mean, praise the Lord for that. So thankful for the financial support too that has come in and I trust will continue to.

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We're gonna need that, not just in our own local church, but our city's gonna need a lot of aid to try to rebuild and all that.

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The weirdest thing right now this week is trying to resume things that are somewhat normal.

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If anybody's been through like a disaster or a calamity, whatever kind of word we wanna use, calamity is a biblical word,

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Paul uses that, right? If you've been through something like this, one of the weirdest things is trying to resume normal activity because you're doing things.

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We have power at the church office, we don't have internet. We actually do have water, just can't drink it.

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So that's kind of where I am right now. But I'm trying to work this week. Last week,

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I'm out at people's homes trying to get trees off of houses and cars with like relief crews and then had to prep a sermon.

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We had church last Sunday, which was awesome. Great to be together. And then now this week, it's like, all right, try to work normal, but nothing's normal.

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That's the weird thing. I don't need to ramble too long about it, but it's just weird in between. Yeah, I'm thankful that we're okay.

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So thankful for the love and the support of the saints from all over. I want to continue preaching the gospel here.

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It seems that the Lord is going to allow us to do that. So glad for that. Thankful, yeah, we're kind of rigging this thing today, trying to get content for the listeners.

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But two thoughts, one is those of you who listen to us, we care about you and we do want to get content for you.

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And we care about what we're doing here in terms of having conversations about Jesus and his love and sufficiency and all those kinds of things.

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And removing the clutter off of the gospel, we care about that. But then in addition, I am hopeful,

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I know John agrees, that the conversation that we're going to have today, we're going to try to get two episodes done today, pulling the curtain back, but trust that these conversations will be encouraging for my own soul in light of everything that's been happening.

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So I'm glad to be behind the mic. I'm glad to be talking to you, man. I love you. I'm grateful for your friendship and your support as much now as I've ever been.

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Amen. Yeah, just a shout out to the community, the Ocasio -Cortez community. I'm gonna try not to tear up here, but I was overwhelmed by the amount of emails, messages, community messages,

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Facebook messages, trying to reach out to Justin and help him. Not only him, but other local

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Christians in the church. And just so thankful we put out a link and I know that money is still coming in, but you guys have been over and above generous and this is not gonna only help

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Justin's community, but sometimes people don't realize that this is gonna affect the giving of the church. So this will help sustain

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Justin and his church as well. So just so thankful for a little podcast that we do, and yet we're gonna see an entire city and church impacted in ways that are pretty significant.

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So we're thankful for that. I think it's just evidence. It's different technology.

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It's kind of a different world, quote unquote, than we maybe read of in the New Testament in terms of how we're able to communicate and all that.

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That's true. But the things that you see in the New Testament from the pen of the apostles and how

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Paul and others will write about how a donation was taken up here and sent to here, or the way that these people have cared for saints in other locations, it's wonderful to see that God still works that way in the hearts and in the minds and in the lives of his people.

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And the things that we saw going on in the New Testament 2 ,000 years ago, like first century, I should say, first century context happening now in the 21st century, and I'm affected, my church is affected, and we're grateful.

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So thankful for you, those of you out there that have prayed for us, have sent support to us, encouraging messages to us, none of it's taken for granted.

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And obviously I've been able to respond to so few, but very thankful. Amen. And when we talk about the work of the kingdom, generosity is a part of that, and many of you have been taking that up.

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And sometimes people just think, oh, well, I wish I could do more. It's like, well, this is what's needed. And that's what's most important is to live within your means and allow when opportunity arise to use funds, as you illustrated, the church has been doing for thousands of years.

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Justin, one of the questions that we wrestle with and that you've been answering throughout your city, you're going to continue to answer the way in which you're going to care for people in your city, and to think about it in Florida, that's going on right now, and then think about wars.

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Yeah, and before all the disasters, I mean, there's evil. You and I were just talking about human trafficking and just a lot of the evil that's in our own country.

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There's so much evil around us. There's so much disaster, and we're not seeing the end of it.

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It's going to continue. And the question I posed to my youth, I was telling you this today,

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I was teaching the youth group the night that all of this happened. You and I were on the phone, you were racing home because the rain was getting bad.

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And then neither one of us had any clue that this was going to happen. And I posed this question to the youth.

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I said, why is it that God allow, being that there's no being more powerful than Him, there's no one that can stop

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God's plan if we know this to be true, there's nothing more significant than Him, and yet these things happen.

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And the people answer this question, they say things like, well, John, how is it we can say that God is good and we can trust

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Him if He has the capacity to stop this type of thing from happening, and He doesn't?

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And so that's really what we wanted to talk about today. I mean, it's the age old problem of why suffering of God is powerful.

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If God is good, why is there suffering? And we've talked about this in the past, but this is a little bit more of a fresh take.

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And so Justin, talk to us a little bit about, I mean, you're coming at this. Yeah, a very raw take. Justin Perdue Well, yeah, like you said, the way that people often will frame this wrestling is that we say biblically that God is both sovereign and good.

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And people say, well, how can He be both if there's evil and suffering in the world? Because it seems that either

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He's sovereign and He's not good, or that He's good, but He can't do anything about it. He's not sovereign.

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And now, granted, there is all kinds of means and agencies and complexity and layers to this.

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Oftentimes this conversation gets very reductionistic when we talk about God and His ways with the world. We reduce it down to like,

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He's up in the heavens pulling strings, or He's literally pushing pieces around on a chessboard. There's a lot more to it than that, in that there's the heavenly host and holy angels and fallen angels, and there's human beings who are like, we're morally culpable and responsible agents.

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We make choices that matter. There's all kinds of stuff that goes on in the world and in terms of God's purposes.

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I want to lead off with this though, John, you want to talk about God's providence for a minute. Anybody that knows me knows

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I'm kind of a real deliberate, intentional dude in the way that I even do pastoral ministry. And so we do our preaching calendar a quarter of the year at a time that's published.

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I plan services a month at a time. I'll plan four services, five services at a time, like well in advance.

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So all this to say, of course, the preaching calendar and the services that were planned and the dates that we were going to have them, that got exploded by the hurricane.

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But then when I kind of reworked the service that we would have had the last Sunday in September, got kicked to October 13.

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I had to make a couple of slight tweaks in terms of who was going to lead the service and all, but I kept the liturgy the same. And our call to worship, which we have a bunch of different calls to worship that we work through on a rotational basis.

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Our call to worship this past Sunday was Psalm 135, five to seven. And I'm going to read these verses and you want to talk about like on the one hand, they're incredible.

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And on the other hand, they introduce a whole set of questions in light of the fact that we literally just had a hurricane rip our city apart.

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All right. For I know that the Lord is great and that the

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Lord our God is above all gods. Whatever the Lord pleases, he does in heaven and on earth, in the seas and all deeps.

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He it is who makes the clouds rise at the end of the earth, who makes lightnings for the rain and brings forth the wind from his storehouses.

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That was our call to worship. And it's like, all right, now let's pray and ask the

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Lord to be with us and everything that we're going to do today. And you're like, okay, we're literally just confessing that God does everything.

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He's above all gods. He does everything that he pleases. That sounds like Psalm 115, right? Our God is in the heavens.

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He does everything he pleases, right? And then in Psalm 135 in particular, we're talking about he does anything that he wants in the deeps.

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You know, like, I mean, the sea is so scary and it's something that we can't control and it's completely under his control.

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Like to use the language of Job, he says this far and no further, you know. But then we're talking about lightning and we're talking about bringing the winds from his storehouses.

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And it's like, well, I mean, Lord, I just drove down the street from my house when I could finally get out and a few hundred yards from where I am, it's very clear that a tornado spun off of the hurricane.

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And I mean, there are 200 -year -old oak trees snapped in half like twigs. Like what's going on here?

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If you're the one that sends winds from your storehouses, it's like, well, those were some serious, ferocious winds that came through.

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And, you know, John, I mean, I guess we can start with this. I mean, here are some things that we know. Let's chalk the field a little bit.

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We understand that the world has fallen, that the curse was put upon not just the serpent, not just humanity, but the curse is effectively because of our sin, the whole creation is cursed.

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And to use the language of Romans 8, the creation has been subjected to futility and the creation groans.

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Well, there was some serious groaning in my neck of the woods recently. All is not as it should be, right?

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Like only an insane person would look around and say, yeah, everything seems to be as it should.

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And the creation is groaning for the Lord to make all things new. So we know that.

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Um, we believe as well, like that the Lord governs all things. I'm using the language of our confession right now.

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According to his wise and holy providence, we know that he accomplishes all of his purposes.

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And, and yet we can say with Paul, like that he so often works through calamity and suffering and weakness and pain.

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Why, why it is that way, we don't fully understand. This is where we're kind of going to go, that, um, we acknowledge that God and truth remain, yet life under the sun is often wracked with sorrow and loss and tears and scary stuff.

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And I even said to my own people, like as a preacher, I don't have answers to the questions that well up in our minds and hearts in the aftermath of something like this hurricane.

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I can't explain the whys or the wherefores, but then there are things that we do know. There are things that we can say.

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Um, and those are the things I'm sure we're going to get to. I don't need to rattle all of those off, but this is definitely a very existential thing.

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It's a visceral thing that we feel as humans when horrible things happen. It's like, where is the Lord? Are you asleep at the wheel,

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God? Like, do you know that this is happening? Do you see what's going on? Are you going to do anything about it?

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Those are questions that we ask. Like, why is it that people lost their houses? Why is it that people in our city lost their lives?

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And we can say too, though, that the Lord does not delight in the perishing of the wicked. And precious in the sight of the

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Lord is the death of his saints. You know, that's true. And I'll lead off with this, man.

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Theology of the cross, right? We know this about the

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Lord. He brings life out of death. He brings beauty out of ashes. He brings glory out of weakness.

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And that's where I would want to start. That when horrible things happen, he's not absent.

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He's not distant. He actually... It's not just...

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I know I'm monologuing right now, and then I want you to jump in. No, you're good. I'll give these two examples biblically, and then there's a lot of other things that can be said.

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These are the things that I go to that help me, at least somewhat. I think a lot of times you hear people talk about how

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God comes upon some terrible thing and then makes good out of it. He works good out of bad.

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It's like, well, it's actually deeper than that, because it's not as though something happened that the

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Lord was not intentional in, and then he just shows up to clean it up.

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Because that's not how the Scriptures describe the Lord. I'm thinking about Genesis 50, like with Joseph and his brothers, right, in the aftermath of that whole piece.

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The words of Joseph in Genesis 50 -20 are astonishing. It's not just what you meant for evil,

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God worked for good. He doesn't say that. He said what you meant for evil, God meant for good.

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So like in the, this is striking to me, like in the intentional decisions, actions, choices of human beings who intended and meant evil, the

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Lord was working in and through that to mean, intend, and accomplish good.

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That's a mind blow. Now, he doesn't sin, he's not the author of sin, but he is so good and wise and powerful that he can even work through the wicked intentions of sinful creatures to mean good.

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Then the obvious one, right, is the greatest sin in the history of the world is the crucifixion of the Son of God. You're going to murder the

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Holy One. And Acts 2, Acts 4, we're told that both of these things are true, that wicked people did what wicked people wanted to do, that there were a lot of people who united themselves against Jesus, against the

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Anointed One of God, who hated him, you know, they were evil men who did evil things, and that all of this was accomplished according to the foreknowledge and the plan of God from all of eternity.

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Both are true. And like how these things can be held together, it breaks our brains, and it's something that our hearts, we can't comprehend it.

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And so some of those things are helpful though, because you're looking around and you're like, how in the world is any of this good? Well, how in the world was it good for Joseph to be sold into slavery by his brothers?

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How in the world could it be good that God would take on flesh and be murdered by human beings?

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How could that be good? But yet he's a redeemer, man. He brings life out of death and beauty out of ashes and glory out of weakness, and he's making all things new, you know.

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That's where we start to look. And there's more that I will say, probably more personally about Jesus that helps me.

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But I want you to talk. Hey guys, real quick. Some of you are listening to this and it's encouraging to you, but you have questions.

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So where do you go? How do you interact with other people who have the same questions and share resources? We have started something called the

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Theocast Community, and we're excited because not only is it a place for you to connect with other like -minded believers, all of our resources there, past podcasts, education materials, articles, all of it's there.

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You can share it and ask questions. You can go check it out. The link is in the description below. Yeah, absolutely.

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So Jeremiah 32, 17, he says, Lord God, it is you who have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and by your outstretched arm, which no other deity being nothing can make that claim, right?

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So then the phrase is warranted and fair. Nothing is too hard for you, which is a comfort, which is a massive comfort.

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There's nothing too hard for God, and yet at the same time, it's confusing, right?

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I said, okay. So it's a comfort to know that there's nothing more powerful than God.

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At the same time, if nothing is too hard for him, then why is it too hard?

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Why is it so hard for him not to help us understand? Why is it so hard for him that he can't step in?

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And listen, Theocast likes to have raw, real conversations. We're not here to sugarcoat this thing and just kind of move on and give you some padded, you know, listen, there are moments where -

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And worrying about platitudes. Yeah, Justin and I have flat out struggled with God. Lord, I do not understand and I do not agree.

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I don't have to understand that. I don't have to agree to love and serve my king because I'm a broken and frail man.

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I'm weak in understanding. I'm sinful and blind. There are times where, if you've ever read the

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Psalms, holy mackerels, guys, how many times did they cry out in disbelief and not understanding what are we going to do, right?

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Like, I am in deep despair. Why have you forsaken me? Why have you treated me in these ways?

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And so for those of you who are listening to this and have suffered, and I mean legitimately suffered, these are real conversations that you're not just, you know, wanting to have a theological answer.

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You want to have a real answer. And I think that it's important that there's really a couple of ways in which that, you know, to tack onto what

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Justin has said. There's a couple of things that we need to understand. And then I think from a theological standpoint, there comes a moment where you either become angry and fall into depression and not only hurt yourself, but hurt those around you.

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That is one option for you. Or you take what you do know and use that for good.

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Because there are realities, Justin, that we just, we can't get away from them.

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I preached on Sunday on Romans 5 and we'll get into this. But one of the realities that you and I just absolutely cannot change, we can't change, is that we're going to die.

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I don't care how hard you want to change that. I mean, I saw an article the other day they're talking about pushing our lifespan up to 150.

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Which I was like, man, 75 years of evil is good enough for me. I don't need another 75 years. Holy mackerels, man.

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No way. But that is a, you just, I don't care how you identify.

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You can identify whatever you want. You can identify as a non -dying human, but you're going to die. I mean, that is the reality that we face.

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Right? And so there are certain, there's a moment in our faith and in our existence where we come to the acceptance of, this is the world that we live in.

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And thankfully, we don't live in the world without there being some kind of hope and direction.

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And it's not ambiguous and it's not distant. One of the things that Donald Gray Barnhouse said in his book on the spiritual, he calls it the invisible war.

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About halfway through the book, he's trying to explain the evil that's there. Cause there's evil and then there's calamity, right?

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You use that word, there's evil. And then there's, you know, these tornadoes and hurricanes. You know, my city got hit.

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We had several people die on a street, just one street from my front porch.

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This was a couple of months ago. And that, and they're still trying to rebuild that. So, you know, my little town,

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Columbia felt the wrath of calamity. Now we've got your city in Florida that's happening.

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And so the world is not as it should be, because when you think about God's original plan, if he's a good

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God and we know that he is, then the original design was not chaos and calamity. Second, we know there's a second kind of suffering that happens from an evil opponent known as the

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Satan, right? Known as Satan himself. And one of the things that Barnhouse said that helped me is if God's going to claim to be the most powerful in a broken world, if God claims to be gracious and kind and forgiving and loving, and there's no one that can separate us from that love, and there's nothing that's more powerful than him.

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In order to make such claims, there needs to be proof. Justin, if I just walked up to you and I'm, you know,

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I offered to save and protect your family from any future harm. The first question you're going to ask me is, well, how can

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I trust that? Like, what proof do you have? And this is where we want to go in that in a world where you see so much pain and suffering, can we trust

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God? Can we say, first of all, there is no other being, spirit being, deity or God is more powerful than him.

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And is God even more powerful than the calamity of our world? And that's where we step in and say, we think the scriptures have an answer to that.

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We don't have an answer to why God does the things that he does, like why he only saves certain people, why he allows certain people to live and others to die at certain periods of time, and why he allows calamities.

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But that doesn't make a knock at his nature. Just because we don't necessarily have the mind of God and the awareness of God and the plan of God in its fullness.

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We have his plan. We know that he's redeeming the world. And we know that he's using the church and the gospel.

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And we know that he's good. We have that part of his plan. But the ultimate hidden will of God, the secret plans of God, we don't have.

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The question then becomes, Justin, do we know enough of God to trust him and not only trust him, but love him?

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Justin Perdue Yeah, amen. Yeah, the secret things belong to the Lord, but the things that have been revealed belong to us and our children, right?

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I've quoted that a good bit lately, as you might surmise. I want to make a few other comments, kind of of a theological nature.

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And then I do want to pivot hard to this. Can God do this?

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And in particular, is he the kind of God that I can trust? And can

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I know that he loves me? That's the real stuff. When you start going through these things, is he powerful enough?

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Can he deliver on what he said? And then what does he say? And what is his posture toward me?

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And am I loved by him? Am I dear to him? Does he care?

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Those are real questions, right? So you mentioned Satan already. We have to acknowledge that under the sovereignty of God, Satan is active in the world and in fallen angels as well, right?

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But I mean, Satan being the chief adversary, and many are familiar with the God of this world, as Paul calls him, or the strong man, as Jesus would refer to him as, etc.

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Many are familiar with Job 1 and 2. I think it's helpful in this way. I'm even thinking about hurricane and natural disasters and things.

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And on the one hand, this is what the curse has produced in the creation, can be said. But think about everything that God allows, and I'm using this word, that God allows

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Satan to do to Job and his family. And some of that is even the elements, man.

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I mean, because there is apparently devastating weather that moves through that causes like all of Job's house and the houses of his children to collapse on themselves.

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So like levels, the buildings, levels, the tents, etc. Satan takes credit for it. And it results in death.

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Now, Satan's involved in that, and God had let it be. And God had purposes in that that we don't need to get into right now.

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And then God says plenty about himself at the end of Job that makes it quite plain that there is none like him, right?

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That's right. I'm thinking of Isaiah. This is applicable in many ways, like Isaiah 45, 46, where the

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Lord refers to Cyrus, who is a Persian. And, you know, if you're not super familiar with the context or even the history of the world at the time, you know, you had a number of different empires that one after the other, and each would kind of conquer the other, so to speak.

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And I mean, many of them are recorded in the pages of the Old Testament. And even as we get into the New Testament, from Egypt to Assyria to Babylon to the

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Persians, the Medes, the Greeks, the Romans, it's all there, man. And many will know that even through the prophets, the

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Lord speaks about how he's going to bring judgment upon Babylon, for example, even though he had used

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Babylon as an instrument of his judgment because of the sin of his own people. But then he talks about how he's going to raise up, effectively, the

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Persians. He's going to raise up Cyrus to be his own servant, even though Cyrus doesn't know him.

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The Lord's like, you don't know me, but I'm going to raise you up, and you're going to be a servant of mine. So I'm saying these things because it just demonstrates the power of the

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Lord over all things. And in Isaiah 46, he'll say that, you know, I am the one who's declared the end from the beginning, and from ancient times, things not yet done, saying that my counsel will stand and I'll accomplish all of my purpose.

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So we know that that's how he is. I mean, I'll say this as well, and I'm getting near the end of these kinds of comments.

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These are just things that come into my mind, and maybe it's helpful to somebody. You know, when natural disasters and wars and all these kinds of calamities are happening,

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I'm comforted by the fact that Jesus said they would. I mean, I'm thinking of like the Olivet Discourse, where Jesus is speaking about how these are the things that will happen in the last days, and we're in the last days, right?

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I mean, he has ascended. He sent the Holy Spirit to be with us, to dwell in us, and Christ is always present with his people, but he's coming back at the end of the age, and we live right now in the last days.

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He has told us that there would be wars and rumors of wars. There would be earthquakes and natural disasters and all of these things happening.

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So none of this is a surprise to Jesus. That helps me. Last comment here of a theological nature before we pivot to theological comments that are much more personal.

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I think it's right to say, and we want to blame God for stuff. We want to put this on him somehow, and I understand why we do that.

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I think it's more precise to say, even when it comes to natural disasters, the nature of life under the sun,

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God did not do this to us. We did this to us, and God has let it be.

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That's how I think through this. We've done this to ourselves, and God has let it be. God is a

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Redeemer. He is making all things new. He is saving a people. He's prepared for us a city.

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He's going to bring us safely there. But then everything that is entailed in this life where we have brought a curse upon ourselves and upon the creation, everything that's entailed in all of this, we don't understand all of the things that are going on, and we certainly can only see about one or two of the 10 ,000 things that God is doing.

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That's abundantly clear to me. John, why don't you say a few things? I think it's such a powerful statement in that God does, in many ways, allow us to reap the benefits of our own decisions.

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We get angry at Him at times. We forget that we ourselves are sinners.

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This is the question they ask. Well, did the tower fall on them because they were sinners? Yeah, you're talking

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Luke 13 right now. Yeah, and Jesus rebukes them and says, you repent lest you die.

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The reality of living in a constant state of sin and the guilt and shame of our sin and that we, from the moment of birth, deserve to die.

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But I think it's healthy, Justin. One of the things that, as we make this pivot, is that our

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God does not look down. You just triggered another thought for me. It's your fault. That's okay.

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God does not look down and only provide His anger and His wrath, which is what happens when you go up against His holiness.

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But what God does is, from the moment that Adam and Eve chose to rebel and throw our entire world into chaos and Satan decided to rebel and bring evil upon our creation, our

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God has provided a redemption for His people. And it's been that plan.

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And the Bible, which is comparative to nothing, because ultimately, Justin, and I'd like to speak from a heart and just to speak frankly, you can get as angry as you want.

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You can be angry and you can get upset and say, this shouldn't be this way.

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I would do it a different way. I don't like the way it's done. But at the end, you have to ask yourself, what are my options?

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And at the end of the day, there is one option, and it's Jesus the King. And it's not that it's like, well,

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I guess it'll have to be. I guess it will do. When you finally realize what

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He's offering you and what He's doing to you and for you, you are left but to worship.

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You are left but to wonder. You are left but to cry out for joy, because what

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He offers you is not just a handout as if, oh, here's some supplies.

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Here's a bucket of some sanitary wipes and some water to get you through disaster. He says, oh, child,

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I'm going to make all things new. And let me prove to you I have the capacity to do that.

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Let me prove to you how faithful I have been, not only through the fall of Adam and Eve, but through all of humanity,

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I have been faithful. And not only have I been faithful, but I proved my love for you as a sinner.

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When you were at your worst, I laid my son's life down for you. So I'm not just offering you some aid.

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I'm cleansing you, restoring you, and I'm promising you to put you in a world where all things will be made right.

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I will wipe away the tears, and this will never happen again. I'm not promising aid. I'm promising something far beyond what you can even comprehend.

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No, amen. It's a good word, man. Really quickly, because this is relevant.

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Particularly, it's been relevant for our area, for people who live here. We tend to be like Jesus' disciples or the people to whom

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Jesus spoke when bad things happen. We ask the question, who sinned? Like you alluded to this.

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Because, all right, Jesus is speaking to Jewish audiences, right? Disciples or Jewish crowds, and they have a category for blessing and curse that is very much rooted in the old covenant paradigm.

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We've talked about this before, and this is where covenant theology matters and some of the things that we talk about on here.

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Because you read Deuteronomy 28, for example. This is all you need to look at this afternoon, and you'll see that the

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Lord is very clear that if you obey my law, I'm going to prosper you temporally, materially.

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You're going to have children. Your flocks will thrive. Your crops will thrive. The whole thing. But then, if you break my law, you're not going to have any of that.

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The wombs will be barren. Livestock's going to die. The earth is going to be like metal. It's going to bear no crops for you, right?

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And he goes on and on and on. And so Jesus is speaking to people who conclude from that, well, if terrible things happen to you, it's because you did something.

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That's what Job's friend said, right? It's like, well, clearly there's something wrong, Job. You did something wrong.

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You sinned, because that's how this works. And you mentioned Luke 13, where Jesus is like, hey, the

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Galileans who were slaughtered by Pilate, do you think they're worse than you? No. If you don't repent, you'll likewise perish.

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The 18 people on whom the tower in Siloam fell on and killed them, do you think they're worse than you? No. I tell you that if you don't repent, you'll likewise perish.

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Or John 9, right? The man born blind. The disciples look at this man, and they say to Jesus, who sinned, this man or his parents?

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Had to be somebody's fault. And Jesus says, neither, actually. It's so that the works of God, the glory of God might be displayed in him.

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Why? Because like we said earlier, he's a God who brings life out of death and glory out of weakness and beauty out of ashes.

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And so he's doing that in the world that he's made. All right, so can we trust him?

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All right, is he powerful enough? I mean, there are many things that I could point to through the scriptures. I'm going to just major on Jesus right now, because if we've seen him, we've seen the

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Father. How do we know God? We look at Christ, right? So think about his life on earth. I mean, dear listener, for just a moment,

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I'm thinking about the fact that a hurricane just ripped through my city and floods and everything else. And it's a great comfort to me that he's out on the

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Sea of Galilee, and it's tumultuous, and it's wild, and the disciples are scared to death. He's asleep in the back of the boat.

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He wakes up, and he stands up, and he calms the storm. You know, it's like, okay, so I think he can handle it. I think when he says, peace be still, even the winds and the sea obey him, the disciples say, because only the

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Lord is like that. Jesus is God, one. Two, the Lord has power over the created order.

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Very clear. In that same, like if you read in Mark's gospel, it's pretty cool how you have power over creation in that Jesus calms the storm, right?

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Then power over demons in the realm of darkness, the principalities and powers of darkness in heavenly places when he removes, casts the demon out of the demoniac, right?

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Because that happens right after he calms the storm. So he's powerful over demons. He's powerful over the evil one.

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He's powerful over fallen angels, et cetera. Then you have the resurrection of Jairus' daughter. You know, so it's like he's powerful even over death, and he raises this little girl from the dead after he's healed a woman who's been bleeding for 12 years.

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It's like, okay, so I think he's powerful enough. Then if there's any question, can he pull this off?

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Well, I mean, he's crucified for our sins. He's laying in the grave, and on the third day, he gets up signifying a whole host of things, but two, one,

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I go to Hebrews 2, and we're told that he took on flesh so that he could conquer the one who has the power of death.

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That is the devil. So when Jesus got up from the grave, he kicked the devil in the teeth, right? I mean, it's over.

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I mean, and so he did that for us. He did that so that we who are subjected to the fear of death and the slavery of that wouldn't have to be afraid anymore.

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So he's conquered the devil, and then he conquered death itself, kicked death in the teeth too when he got up from the grave.

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How do we know that God can pull it off? How do we know that Jesus is powerful enough? It's because he's alive, man, and he's been victorious over the evil one and over the grave and over all of our enemies.

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And so he's powerful enough, but then you ask, okay, but does he love me? Does he care? Well, I think about a number of things.

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I'm just going to rattle a few off, John, and this will probably be it for me unless you say something that sparks more thoughts. God loves us so much that God the

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Son left the glories of heaven in order to become a human to come and get us. God gave his law as a reflection of his own holiness and to reveal his standard, and then

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God the Son became a man to die under that law's curse because we broke it.

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He became a man in order to keep that law for us because we couldn't. We have a

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God who already said he became a man to conquer death and conquer the devil so that we don't have to be afraid anymore.

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But then even more personally, we have a God who wept at the death of his friend. We have a

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God who sighed with lament as he knelt before a deaf man. We have a God who, when a leper, a man full of leprosy, comes to him and says, if you desire

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Jesus, you can make me clean. What does Jesus say? I desire. Be clean.

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This is who he is, and this is what he's like. We have a God who says, in the world you have tribulation, but take heart.

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I've overcome the world. We have a God who says, I'm with you always, even to the end of the age.

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We have a God who is making all things new, who himself looks forward to the day when there will no longer be mourning or crying or pain anymore, and he's going to wipe away every tear.

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He looks forward to that day. Then we have a God who looks forward to the day when we are presented pure and blameless before his throne, and we get to dwell forever in the city that he's made for us.

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This is the way that he loves us, and this is his posture toward us. We're going to talk,

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I think, next episode about imputed righteousness, the act of obedience of Christ. God looks at every one of us who are in Jesus and says to us what he says about Jesus.

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He's well -pleased. We're safe. Jesus says, I'm coming soon, man.

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We say with all the saints, amen, come Lord Jesus. That's where we rest.

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Jon Moffitt How many movies have you seen, Justin, where you've got the hero and he tells the child or his spouse or whoever the person goes,

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I promise I'll be back. I promise I'll make this right. I promise I'll do this. Justin Perdue Many.

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Jon Moffitt I'm glad he said that because now it's going to work out. But he's a human.

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He literally, or she can't keep that promise. They have such good intentions.

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Justin Perdue She hopes. Jon Moffitt That's right. Jesus never says he hopes. Justin Perdue Nope. Jesus doesn't hope.

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Jon Moffitt He doesn't say, I hope I can make all things new. I hope I can. I'm going to do my best.

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He makes exacting statements that either he is a liar or he is nuts. And so this is why it's so important that if you claim to be a follower of Christ and he makes the claim,

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I will make all things new and I will restore you in that which

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I make all things new. And to your point, and this is my closing thought, Justin, this is from John 17, to understand that Jesus is doing this not because, well, this is fun for him.

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Listen to this language that he uses where he wants, this is his prayer to the Father. I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through the word, that they may all be one, just as you,

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Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us.

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Now, no, it's not like I'm going to save you and then you'll have your spot. He says there is a oneness that happens, that we become a part of this family, that we become a part of who they are, which is unreal.

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Speaking of affection, right? I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you have loved me.

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Think about this. He loves us, the Father loves us, the one that's going to make all things new, that he is going to restore us and put us in this new place.

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He says that he loves us as he loves Christ. I'm sorry, but that is unreal. Justin Perdue Unreal.

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In John 16, the chapter before that, Jesus tells the disciples that the Father himself loves you, and that's a big deal.

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Then just in the verses right around what you just read, one of the great verses that has comforted me basically my whole

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Christian life was when Jesus says, I desire that they that you have given me would be with me where I am to see the glory that you gave me because you loved me before the foundation of the world.

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Jesus is not just a Savior. The Father is not just reluctantly involved in this thing.

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It's like Jesus is saying to the Father, here's what I really want. What I really want is that they would be with me forever to see the glory that you gave me,

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Father, before the world existed because you loved me. I want them to be a part of that. That's what we get to look forward to.

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That's the anchor that holds within the veil in the midst of this suffering and calamity and trial that we go through now.

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To close this down, my encouragement to anyone that is listening, there isn't an answer.

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There will possibly come, according to the book of Revelation, there's possibly one that's going to come and offer you an answer.

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They are the Antichrist. They are a false prophet. They are false teachers. Do not listen to them. Our Bible has told us to look to the

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King and His sufficiency in the midst of chaos. He even told us we're going to suffer.

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Not only suffer for our righteousness, but suffer for death because of the fall. Our encouragement to you is to look to the

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King who has never failed, never lied, and has proven Himself faithful. He rose from the grave.

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He conquered. Every week we look to that. We have a hope for those who are suffering.

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Every time there's a disaster and there's pain and suffering, we don't go to them and just say, best wishes to you.

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We tell them there is a hope. I'm ready to tell you and you're ready to listen. This is what

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Peter says, be ready to give an answer of the hope that lies within you. We're going to build on this next week.

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We're going to talk about one of the greatest hopes that we have is Christ's promise to us that in a broken world, we continue to fail

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Him. We have a never -ending, never -failing righteousness that's been given to us. Come back next week and we'll talk about that.

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All right, Justin. Love you, brother. Glad that you're safe. We'll talk next week. Love you too, man. All right.

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Love to you guys out there. Hey, everyone. Before you go, Justin and I first wanted to say thank you. If this has been encouraging to you in any way, please feel free to share it.

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