If God is Good...Then Why?
Notes
Transcript
Intro
Intro
If God is all good then...
If God is all powerful...
What an arrogent thing to say. Sure it might make sense when you talk it out a bit but lies sometimes sound real.
To even make a statement like that implies that God OWES US something.
God has done His part. He has saved us from ourselves. Adam and eve broke it and God fixed it. Everything else is icing.
Does that sound harsh? Maybe, but evil is harsh.
God created and gave Adam and eve everything they could ever need. He kept them from the knowledge of pain and suffering.
It wasn’t until their chioce to reject God that evil had a foot hold.
You see Evil CAN’T exist in the presesnt of God the Father. Once evil entered humanity we chose pain. We became spiritually damaged.
Well, is God the creator or not? He could just fix it if He REALLY wanted to.
It isn’t that simple. What about love? what about justice?
But, we are free to do as we please. If God were simply to remove all obstacles we would not have any choice but to love Him.
Cs Lewis says’ “Why, then, did God give them free will? Because free will, though it makes evil possible, is also the only thing that makes possible any love or goodness or joy worth having. A world of automata - of creatures that worked like machines - would hardly be worth creating.”
This piece is so important to understand when talking about this issue. Meaningful choice is what makeslove and joy possible.
That means I get to choose to help the poor. That also means the taliban and it’s leaders get to choose genocide.
“Those who most value the freedom to choose are often thequickest to condemn God for allowing evil and suffering. Critics of a God who allows evil and suffering may feel deeply that they should have the freedom to smoke, or drive at the speedthey wish, or not wear a seat belt or a bike helpmet. Then when they get injured or injure someone else, they question God’s goodness, unwilling to take responsibility for the consequesnces for their actions.
Freedom to do Good, which bringds good consequences,cannot exist without freedom to do evil.”
We want God to eliminate evil until it is inconvienient to us. As a Christian rapper Lecrae says, “Hey look man, some people say that God ain't real
'Cause they don't see how a good God can exist with all this evil in the world
If God is real then He should stop all this evil, cause He's all-powerful right?
What is evil though man? It's anything that's against God. It's anything morally bad or wrong
It's murder, rape, stealing, lying, cheating
But if we want God to stop evil, do we want Him to stop it all or just a little bit of it?
If He stops us from doing evil things, what about lying, or what about our evil thoughts?
I mean, where do you stop, the murder level, the lying level, or the thinking level?
If we want Him to stop evil, we gotta be consistent, we can't just pick and choose
That means you and I would be eliminated right? Because we think evil stuff
If that's true, we should be eliminated!”
So in a nutshell THAT is why evil is here and why God doesn’t destroy it. If we want it gone then as a race of people we have to collectivley decide to do it and carry it through.
Which brings me to my point today.
Main Point
Main Point
Our freedom to choose is the reason evil exists but also the reason we love.
Why Does This Matter
Why Does This Matter
We learned last week that even though pain and suffering doesn’t make sense and is unfair we have to know that God is going to ohold us through. He has won! We are a part of Hos family.
We live in a fallen world. We chose this path or we had this path chosen for us.
Why does it matter to understand that the pain and suffer we experience is our fault?
Becuase we can then clearly see the way out of it. Which is our relastionship with God and each other.
Scripture
Scripture
One final piece we HAVE GOT to understand is the difference between natural evil and moral evil.
One is cause by forces outside of our control while the other is completely within our control, oten times witht he help of the Holy SPirit.
Moral evil = murder, adultry, running a red light, hurting soemone
Natural evil = sickness, earth quakes, pain suffering.
Nartual Evil is the ALWAYS the direct result of moral evil.
Adamand eve ate the fruit = moral evil
Evil intered their spirit and separated them from the presence of God = Natural evil
Corporations in cities ignore environmental orders and pollute the air we breathe = moral evil
People get long cancer and die = natural evil
Wechoose to eat poorly = moral evil
We get fat and have a heart attack = natural evil.
The word natural is the key here. it is the result of an action. Any time we are sick and die it is a result of one of 3 things, 1) I chose to do something I should not have done, 2) Someone else chose to do something they shouldn’t have done, 3) it is a result of living in a fallen world under the curse from Adam and eve. Pain and suffering were the natural result of telling God that we didn’t need Him any more. Which brings me to my passage. Which illustrates my point today. Jeremiah 32 28 to 44.
Therefore this is what the Lord says: I am about to give this city into the hands of the Babylonians and to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, who will capture it. The Babylonians who are attacking this city will come in and set it on fire; they will burn it down, along with the houses where the people aroused my anger by burning incense on the roofs to Baal and by pouring out drink offerings to other gods.
“The people of Israel and Judah have done nothing but evil in my sight from their youth; indeed, the people of Israel have done nothing but arouse my anger with what their hands have made, declares the Lord. From the day it was built until now, this city has so aroused my anger and wrath that I must remove it from my sight. The people of Israel and Judah have provoked me by all the evil they have done—they, their kings and officials, their priests and prophets, the people of Judah and those living in Jerusalem. They turned their backs to me and not their faces; though I taught them again and again, they would not listen or respond to discipline. They set up their vile images in the house that bears my Name and defiled it. They built high places for Baal in the Valley of Ben Hinnom to sacrifice their sons and daughters to Molek, though I never commanded—nor did it enter my mind—that they should do such a detestable thing and so make Judah sin.
“You are saying about this city, ‘By the sword, famine and plague it will be given into the hands of the king of Babylon’; but this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: I will surely gather them from all the lands where I banish them in my furious anger and great wrath; I will bring them back to this place and let them live in safety. They will be my people, and I will be their God. I will give them singleness of heart and action, so that they will always fear me and that all will then go well for them and for their children after them. I will make an everlasting covenant with them: I will never stop doing good to them, and I will inspire them to fear me, so that they will never turn away from me. I will rejoice in doing them good and will assuredly plant them in this land with all my heart and soul.
“This is what the Lord says: As I have brought all this great calamity on this people, so I will give them all the prosperity I have promised them. Once more fields will be bought in this land of which you say, ‘It is a desolate waste, without people or animals, for it has been given into the hands of the Babylonians.’ Fields will be bought for silver, and deeds will be signed, sealed and witnessed in the territory of Benjamin, in the villages around Jerusalem, in the towns of Judah and in the towns of the hill country, of the western foothills and of the Negev, because I will restore their fortunes, declares the Lord.”
28 - Because of this God is going to allow you to fall into the hands of Babylon
29 - They will burn your city down, because you all decided to worship baal and other Gods
30 - From their youth they have only rebelled against God. He is removing His protection again because they again say He isn't enough
31 - Because of this the city will be removed
32 - Both kingdoms have done nothing but spit in my face. All of them.
33 - They always forget and they always rebel
34 - They worship their false gods in their own hauses that bear my name
35 - They are sacrificing their children to Molek. THEY ARE KILLING THEIR KIDS for these false gods
36 - This isn't going to be pleasant
37 - This is temporary. My wrath is temporary. I will restore them
38 - They will be mine and I will be theirs
39 - They need to understand what will happen when they rebel against me. I keep them safe and secure.
40 - I will make this promise. They will see why this was all needed. They will never turn from me again
41 - This will be the best. I will rejoice
42 - As they roused my anger they will also feel my love again. I promise.
43 - It will be restored
44 - This is only temporary. God's solution is eternal.
This is what the world does. It ignores God, tells Him he isn’t real or that He isn’t good enough for them. Then they are surprised when evil happens to them.
That is the story here in Israel and Judah. They are a divided kingdom. They are worshipping Baal and Malok by sacrificing/killing their children.
Then when God doesn’t fullfil His end ofthe covenent because THEY broke it…they get mad at HIM!
Application
Application
Week 1 - Pain and suffering Happens - Sometimes we know why sometimes we don’t. What we do know is that God is with us. He will see us through. We hold on to that.
Week 2 (today) - We chose this path Thousands and thousands of years ago. Which brought evil into the world. God is all Good and all powerful.
As Randy Alcorn says in his book, “Maybe God is holding back 99.9% of all that is evil and what we see and experience is only .01%. What % of evil would we find acceptable? Would we ever be satisfied?
Evil exist so we can maintain or ability to make meaningful choices. With that ability comes the ability to chose Goodness AND evil. Some people choose evil and that effects the rest of us.(natural consequences.)
Closing
Closing
God is good because we don’t immediately experience the immeadiate consequences of our Sin.