“A Biblical Response to the Problem of Evil and Suffering”

(Sunday Morning January 24th, 2010)

 

Selected Scriptures

 

O.S.  Like Most of You, I Have Seen Those Images of Devastation and Human Suffering that Have Come From the Port Au Prince in the Country of Haiti. The Death Toll, as of This Past Friday, Had Reached 110,000, and I Just Want You to Know That My Heart Goes Out to Those People, And’ I Most Certainly DO NOT Agree With Pat Robertson Who Said That
 God Has Brought This Upon the Haitians, Because a Voodoo Priest in 1791 Allegedly Made a Pact With the Devil. That Was a Cruel and Shallow Thing to Say.  In Fact, That is the Same Kind of Logic That Job’s Friends Used to Explain His Suffering.

They Essentially Said That This All Happened to Job, Because He Had Committed Some Kind of Grievous Sin And Job Responded to Their Reasoning by Saying, "I have heard many such things; miserable comforters are you all!” (Job 16:2) NKJV

 

No, the Truth is That None of Us are Immune to These Kinds of Natural Disasters and the Plight of Human Suffering. In Fact, God Himself Called Job “…a blameless and upright man who feared God and turned away from evil” (Job 1:1) But Nevertheless, Job Had to Endure the Loss of All of His Children as the Result of a Natural Disaster and a Great Deal of Physical and Emotional Pain .

 

St =  Now, When Job First Heard About the Death of All His Children, and the Death of All But Four of His Servants, as Well

        as the Loss of All of His Possessions, He Responded With a Great Statement of Faith That is Recorded in Job 1:21;
         He Said,“… ‘Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked I shall return there. The LORD gave and the LORD has

        taken  away.  Blessed be the name of the LORD.’”
 

But After His Health Was Taken From Him, Even Job Began to Complain And in Chapter 3,  We Find That He Began to Ask Some Questions:

 

In Verse 11, He Said, “WHY  did I not die at birth, WHY did I not perish when I came from the womb?”

 

In Verse 12, He Said, “WHY did the knees receive me? Or WHY the breasts that I should nurse?”

 

In Verse 16, He Said, “Or WHY was I not hidden like a stillborn child,  like infants who never saw light?”

 

In Verse 20, He Said, “WHY is light given to him who is in misery, and life to the bitter soul?”

 

And in Verse 23, He Said, “WHY is light given to a man whose way is hidden, and whom God has hedged in?”

 

Over and Over, Job Asked “WHY?” , and  of Course, What Job Was Really Asking Was “WHY did God allow all of this to happen to me?”And “WHY does evil and suffering even exist in this world?”

 

St = Of Course,  Job is Not the Only One Who Has Ever Sought an Answer to This Perplexing Question

 

George Barna, the Leading Researcher of Spiritual Trends in America, Conducted a National Survey Several Years

Ago in Which He Scientifically Selected a Cross-Section of Adults and Asked This Question: He Said,“If You Could

Ask God Only One Question, and You Knew He Would Give You an Answer, What Would You Ask?”

 

The Number One Answer Was This: “Why is Their Pain and Suffering in the World?”

 

This Question Has Been Called “The Achilles Heel” of Christianity, Because It is the Most Common Criticism That Our Secular World Levels Against Our Christian Belief in a Kind and Loving God.

 

“If Your God is a Loving God, and if Your God is All-Powerful,” Our Critics Say, “Then, Why Doesn’t Your God do

   Something About All of the Evil and Suffering That is in Our World?”

 

And These Questions are Worse When They are Personalized. (Elaborate)

 

By the Way, I Think We Should Give Job Credit for the Fact That He Acknowledged the Good Things That God Had Done for Him Because He Said This to His Wife in Job 2:10, He Said, “…You speak as one of the foolish women speaks. Shall we indeed accept good from God and not accept adversity?’…”  

Q.n = That’s a Really Good Question, Isn’t It?

 

Many People are Quick to Blame God for Evil and Suffering, But They Tend to Overlook  the Fact That He Has Provided All of Us With a Lot of Good Things in Life. Well, We Need Some Kind of an Answer to This. Why Question, Not Only to be Able to Deal With Our Critics, But Also to be Able to Cope With Evil and Suffering When It Inevitably Effects All of Us in a Personal Way. So, This Morning I Want Us to Examine What the Scriptures Tell Us About

         the Origin of Evil and Suffering and the Purposes of Evil and Suffering.

I. An Explanation of the Origin of Evil and Suffering

 

1)  God Did Not Create Evil and Suffering

 

Let Me Begin by Saying That Our God Cannot in Any Way be Responsible for Creating Evil as We Know It Because in Genesis 1:31, the Bible Says That…“…God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good….”  NKJV And Over and Over Again, We are Told That God Cannot in Any Way be Associated With Evil.

 

In Habakkuk 1:13, for Example, the Bible Says That God is… “…too pure to approve evil, and He cannot look on wickedness with favor” (Paraphrase)

 

1 John 1:5 Says “…God is Light, and in Him (Listen) there is no darkness at all”

 

And in James 1:13, We are Told That God… “…cannot be tempted by evil, and He Himself does not tempt anyone”

 

So, God is Not Evil; God Does Not do Evil; God Cannot be Tempted by Evil, and God Never Tempts Anyone Else to do Evil.

 

Q.n = So, Since God is the Creator of All Things, How do We Explain the Presence of Evil in Our World?

 

Ans = God Did Not Create Evil as We Know It

 

In Other Words, Listen, God Only Made Evil Possible, But He Did Not Make Evil Actual

 

God Created Some Creatures Who Were Given a Freewill, Namely, Angels
        and Human Beings

 

And Unfortunately, Some of These Angels, and Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden Chose Evil Over God

 

2) God Did Not Prevent Evil and Suffering

 

In Isaiah 14:12, We are Told That Satan Was Originally Called “Lucifer” Which Literally Means “The Morning Star”. And in Ezekiel 28:12, We are Told That He Was Originally Created in Perfection. But Then, Ezekiel 28:15 Says This About Him; It Says,"You were blameless in your ways from the day you were created  until unrighteousness was found in you” And With That Breathtaking Comment, We Have a Very Brief Description of How Sin and Evil Entered Into Our Universe. “Unrighteousness” Was Suddenly Found in a Being Who Just Moments Before Had Been Blameless And We Also Know That His Original Sin Was the Sin of Pride.

In Isaiah 14, We are Told That Lucifer Made Five “I Will” Statements And the Fifth of These Statements Went Like This, He Said, “I will be like the most high God” At That Moment, We are Told That He Was Cast Out of Heaven, and We are Told in Revelation 12:4 That One-Third of the Angels Joined Him in His Rebellion. Moreover, in 1 Timothy 3:6, the Apostle Paul Tells Us That We Should Never Ordain a New Convert so That, Listen to This, so That…“…he will not become conceited and fall into the condemnation incurred by the devil”. So, There It is Stated Very Clearly.

And We Know That the Original Sin Was Pride. God Did Not Create Evil, as We Know It, But He Did Create Freewill And, Unfortunately, a Creature Named “Lucifer” Made a Tragic Choice, and That is How Evil Went From Being Possible to Being Actual.

 

St = Adam and Eve Were Also Created With a Freewill, and They Too Made a Tragic Choice

 

For You See, God Created Them, and He Put Them in a Beautiful Garden Filled With All Kinds of Beautiful Fruit Trees. Then, He Gave Them This Command in Genesis 2:16-17; He Said, “16…’From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; 17 but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die’”.

 

Now, Please Notice That God Did Not Force Them to Eat From the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. In Fact, He Solemnly Warned Them Not to do It. At That Point, Evil and Suffering as We Know It Were Only Possible.

 

Q.n = Who Made It Actual?

Ans = Adam and Eve

 

Q.n = So, Why Would God Even Make Evil and Suffering Possible?
Ans = I Believe That the Answer to That Question is Love

 

For You See, Where There is no Freewill, There is no Such Thing as Love.

 

When I Proposed to Sonja, for Example, I Did Not Say, “Sonja, You Will Marry Me”. Instead, I Popped “The Question” as It is Commonly Known; I Said, “Sonja, Will You Marry Me?” Then, I Begged and Pleaded for a Long Time, and She Finally Said, “Yes.”. Well, …That’s Not Exactly How It Happened

Q.n = But Listen, Why Did I Ask Her Instead of Telling Her?
Ans = Because I Wanted Sonja to Marry Me Because She Was in Love With Me and I Wanted Her to Choose of Her Own

          Freewill to do So.

 

Q.n = Ah, But Isn’t God Omniscient?  Isn’t He the Alpha and the Omega?  Doesn’t He Know the Beginning From the End?

          And So, Didn’t He Know That Some of His Angels and Adam and Eve Would Make This Tragic Choice?

          That’s Right; But Apparently, Even These Tragic Consequences Were Better Than the Alternative Which Would Have

          Been for no Freewill Creatures to Exist And by Allowing Evil to Come Into Existence, God Also Gained a Backdrop

         That Could Better Reveal His Eternal Glory Which is Why the Westminister Confession of Faith Says This, It Says,
 

           “God from all eternity did by the most wise and holy counsel of His own will freely
              and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass.  Yet so as thereby neither is God
            the author of sin, nor is violence offered to His creatures, nor is the liberty or contingency
             of second hand causes taken away.  Sinfulness proceeds only from the creature and not from
             God who, being most holy and righteous, neither can be the author and approver of sin.
             But then… (Says the Westminister Confession of Faith)…all that God decrees and all
             that God providentially brings to pass is all to the praise of His glory”

 

Q.n = So, What Does That Mean?
Ans = That Means That God Can Ultimately Use Evil and Sin and Suffering to Better Reveal His Glory

 

Listen Carefully to What Paul Said in Romans 9:22-23; He Said,

 

            “22 What if God, wanting to show His wrath and to make His power known,
              endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath prepared for destruction,
              23 and that He might make known the riches of His glory on the vessels
              of mercy, which He had prepared beforehand for glory” (NKJV)

 

This Tells Us That God Can Use Evil and Sin to Reveal His Longsuffering, and Ultimately, to Reveal His Glory, When His Wrath is Exercised, In Fact, This is Exactly How He Used the Pharaoh of Egypt, and That is Why the Bible Says This About the Pharaoh in Exodus 9:16; It Says, “But indeed for this purpose I have raised you up (Referring to the Wicked Pharaoh of Egypt), that I may show My power in you, and that My name may be declared in all the earth”.  (Elaborate)

 

So Now, We Can See That God Had Three Very Good Reasons for Allowing Evil and Suffering to Come Into Existence: Freewill, Love and His Glory

 

II. An Explanation of the Purposes of Evil and Suffering

 

Now, When Evil Came Into Existence, God Had Two Options,  He Could Have Chosen to Eliminate Evil, But He Chose Instead to Use Evil to Better Display His Glory. In the Case Regarding Angels, I Believe That God Decided to Make an Example Out of Lucifer and Those That Joined Him in His Rebellion. I Believe That God Decided to Allow Satan’s Rebellion to Run Its Full Course And in This Way, the Entire Universe Could Witness God’s Great Power, and His Great Wisdom and Glory. As Far as the Fall of Man is Concerned, I Believe That God Also Had Two Options. One Was to Destroy Adam and Eve and the Entire Human Race With Them, Because They Had Become Evil and Sinful. The Other Option Was to Allow the Human Race to Continue, Even Though We Were Now Infected With Sin, But to Provide a Plan for Redemption. For You See,  God Could Not Completely Eliminate Evil Without Destroying the Entire Human Race.

On One Occasion, Jesus Told a Parable About the Wheat and the Tares, for Example, and This is What He Said; He Said,

 

        "But while his men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went away”  (Matthew 13:25)

 

Now, This Phrase “Among the Wheat” in the Greek is a Strong Expression That Literally Means  “All Through the Midst of and Between and on Top of the Wheat”. The Roots Had Become so Inextricably Intertwined That Any Attempt to Pull Up the Tares Would Have Resulted in Pulling Up the Wheat as Well. So, He Says That the Wisest Thing to do Was Simply to Wait Until the Harvest Came; and Then, the Farmer Would be Able to Separate the Two.

 

Pt = The Point Jesus Was Making Was That You Can’t Root Out All of  the Bad Without Rooting Out Some of the Good as

       Well.

 

St = Now, the Bible Also Teaches That God Uses Evil and Suffering for at Least Three Purposes

 

1)    God Uses Evil and Suffering for Grace

 

And by This, I Mean That God Uses Evil and Suffering to Draw Men and Women to Himself. God Desires for All Men to be Saved, But God Will Not Violate Our Freewill. Yet, While God Will Not Violate Our Freewill, He Will Appeal to Our Freewill
in a Number of Different Ways. He Will Appeal to a Person’s Conscience; He Will Convict a Person of Sin; He Will Send a Messenger, and He Will Use Human Suffering. For You See, After the Fall of man, God Needed an Instrument That Would Awaken Man to the Seriousness of His Spiritual Predicament.

Man Was in Danger of Spiritual Death and Eternal Separation From Him. So, God Needed an Instrument That He Could Use to Warn Men and Women of That Danger, and I Believe That Suffering Was That Instrument.

 

Genesis 3:22-24 (Turn and Read)

 

Now, Please Notice That PHYSICAL DEATH DID NOT COME AS A DIRECT RESULT OF THE FALL

 

Spiritual Death Came as a Direct Result of the Fall, But It Was Not Until God Decided to Block the Path to the Tree of Life That Physical Death Came And Verse 22 is a Very Rare Incomplete Sentence in the Hebrew That Expresses a Great Deal of Emotion. It Tells Us That, From God’s Perspective, It Would Have Been Indescribably Tragic for Man to go on Living Physically Without Him, So, God Chose Instead to Subject Mankind to Physical Death and Physical Suffering to Force Him to Contemplate His Eternal Destiny.

 

NOW LET ME ASK YOU A QUESTION

 

Q.n = If Men and Women Could Live Forever Physically Would They be More Likely or Less Likely to Turn to God?

Ans = I Believe the Obvious Answer is “Less Likely”

 

And Suffering is an Instrument That God Can Use to Awaken Us to Our Need for an Eternal Relationship With Him. Pain Gets Our Attention, and the Brevity of Our Life Forces Us to See Our Need for Salvation. No One Ever Said It Better Than C.S. Lewis When He Said,

 

           “God whispers to us in our conscience; He speaks to us in our prayers,

              but He shouts to us in our pain; It is His megaphone for rousing

               a deaf world”

 

You See, From a Human Perspective, We See Suffering as Cruel;But From a Divine Perspective, Suffering is an Instrument of Grace. It is Designed to Draw Us to God and to Bring Us Back Into That Eternal Love Relationship That He Intended for Us to Have. Now, Some of Our Critics Who Hear This Will Say That It is Too Severe.

 

Ex.  I Mentioned the Death Toll in Haiti Being at 110,000 as of Last Friday

 

Ex.   The Death Toll From the Tsunami That Happened in December of 2004 Eventually Reached 118,000

 

Ex.  The Bubonic Plague That Swept Over Europe in the 14th Century Lasted 14 Years and 25 Million People Died

 

Ex.  And Over 25 Million People in Our Modern World Have Died From the AIDS Virus Since 1981

Q.n = Is It Too Severe?
Ans = Apparently Not  

 

And I Say That Because, I’ve Met a Lot of People Who Don’t Feel That They Need God.

 

2) God Uses Evil and Suffering for Glory

 

I’ve Already Alluded to This; But Now, I Want to Make It a Little Bit More Personal, Because the Bible Says That God Created Us for His Glory And Therefore, Listen, the Presence of Evil and Suffering Provides Every One of Us With an Opportunity to Display the Depth of Our Faith for His Glory’s Sake.

 

Ex. Job’s Terrible Experience of Suffering, for Example, Revealed the Genuineness of His Faith in God and Resulted in an

      Eternal Weight of Glory

 

In Fact, I Believe That Job’s Finest Moment Came in Job 13:15 When He Said “(Even) though He slay me, yet will I trust Him…”  NKJV

 

For You See, That Statement Revealed, Listen to Me Now, That Statement Revealed the Fact That Job’s Faith Was Genuine and Unshakable.

 

Ex. Abraham’s Response to the Test of Sacrificing Isaac on Mount Moriah Revealed the Fact That He Loved God Supremely

 

Ex. The Apostle Paul Admitted That His Thorn in the Flesh, Even Though It Caused Him a Lot of Pain, Kept Him Humble

     and More Useful for God; And So, in This Way, Paul Knew That God Was Glorified Through His Suffering (2 Cor 12)

 

Ex.  And Paul’s Greatest Concern as He Faced the Possibility of Being Executed, Probably by Nero, Was That God Would be

      Glorified by It All

In Philippians 1:20, He Said That His Earnest Expectation and Hope Was That He Would Not be Put to Shame in Anything, But That With All Boldness “…Christ will even now, as always, be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death”

 

Ex.   Listen Carefully to What the Apostle Peter Said in 1 Peter 4:14-15; He Said, “If you are reviled for the name of Christ, you

        are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you”  (Elaborate)

 

Ex.   And Finally, When Jesus Prayed His High Priestly Prayer in Gethsemane, He Said This; He Said, “Father the hour has

        come; glorify Your Son, that the Son may glorify You”  (John 17:1)

 

So, This Should be Our Objective as We Face Evil and Suffering (Elaborate)

 

3) God Uses Evil and Suffering for Good

 

In Romans 8:28, the Apostle Paul Said, “And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose”. Now, That Verse Does Not Say That Everything That Happens to Us is Good, But It Does Say That God Can Use It to Produce Good.

 

Q.n = Do You Remember the Story of Joseph? The End Result of All of the Evil He Encountered and the Suffering He Had

          to Endure Was That God Exalted Him and Used Him to Preserve His People.

 

And in Genesis 50:20, He Looked Back in Retrospect and Said to His Brothers “As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to bring about this present result, to preserve many people alive”.

 

Of Course, the Ultimate Example of This Truth is Found in the Cross of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

 

For You See, Nothing That Has Ever or Will Ever Occur in History Was More Evil, and No One Ever Suffered More Than Our Lord Jesus Christ on the Cross. He Was Humiliated, and Spit Upon, and Mocked, and Beaten, and Tortured And Satan Must Have Thought He Had Won the Victory But Never Could He Have Been More Wrong. Because Three Days Later, Jesus Rose From the Grave And the Cross, This Great Instrument of Suffering, Has Become the Means by Which God Offers Us Redemption And Because of the Cross, There is One Thing That None of Us Can Say. None of Us Can Say That Our God Does Not Understand, and That He Does Not Sympathize With Us When We Suffer Because He Has Been There, He Has Experienced Evil and Suffering Firsthand.

 

Invitation:

 

Well, Now, Let Me Close by Answering Another Common and Perplexing Question, and This is It.

 

Q.n = Since Our God is a Loving God and an All-powerful God, Why Doesn’t He Destroy Evil and Eliminate Suffering?
Ans = Because He is Waiting for a Harvest

 

You See, God is Powerful Enough to Destroy All Evil Right Now, But He Would Have to Destroy the Entire Human Race to do It And That is Because Every Human Being is Sinful, We Have All Sinned and Have Fallen Short of God’s Glory the Bible Says, So, He Has Patiently Tolerated a Great Deal of Evil and Suffering in Our World

Ill: People Often Mention Hitler and the Jewish Holocaust, for Example, Which Resulted in the Deaths of 6 Million Jews.  But Let Me Tell You Something, Hitler is at Least a Distant Third.

 

Joseph Stalin, a Former Leader of the Soviet Union, by Purging His Political Opponents, by Forced Famines, State Terrorism, Death Camps and Forced Migrations Was Responsible for the Deaths of Over 20 Million People.

And the Communist Leader Zedong Mao Was Responsible for the Deaths of Over 70 Million People in China Most of Whom Died by Forced Starvation

 

Q.n = So, Why Hasn’t Our Loving All-Powerful God Brought All of This Evil and Suffering to an End?

Ans = I Believe That the Answer to That Question Can be Found in 2 Peter 3:9 Which Says This, Listen, It Says, “The Lord is

         not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to

        come to repentance”

 

I Believe That God Lord Already Know Who is and Who is Not Going to Receive His Son And as Soon as That Last One Makes His Decision, I Believe That God is Going to Say “Alright, They’re All in.  So Let’s Shut It All Down!”