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Country Life SDA Church

Eric Walsh

If God, Why Evil?

Our scripture reading comes from Proverbs 16, 4 as Elder Buck just read so well.

The Lord has made all things for himself, yea, even the wicked for the day of evil.

Our message this Sabbath is entitled, If God, Why Evil?

Father God, we thank you for this opportunity to study your word.

We thank you Lord for your goodness and for your grace.

Lord I just ask now once again that you make me just a nail hammered into the wall by your Holy Spirit.

And then Lord hang a portrait of Jesus Christ upon that nail.

Father, we want to hear a word from your throne room of grace.

The book of John, we have an interesting story that we'll just start with and we'll finish it at the end of the sermon.

The Bible says, And Jesus passed by, and as Jesus passed by, he saw a man which was blind from his birth.

In the Jewish economy or the way that they thought, all sin, all disease was a punishment for something you had done.

And there was nothing worse than to be born a certain way.

And so when they, when, when as they walk by there's this man there and he has been blind since the day he was born.

There's a lot of reasons medically that that can happen, doesn't really matter.

What matters is that in the minds of those around him it was either his fault or his parents fault.

In verse 2 his disciples actually asked him this saying, Master who did sin?

This man or his parents that he was born blind?

And so in their way of thought, he couldn't just be born blind just to be born blind.

Somebody had to have done something wrong.

And it really leads to a deeper question.

Why does he, why doesn't God stop these things from happening?

I got a text from a student at Southern Adventist University where our daughter's in school, when the student from Southwest Adventist University unfortunately passed away, and we have to make sure we keep the family in prayer, and this student was distraught, and he asking me, why would God allow this?

How do we make sense of the pain that life throws at us because life is painful.

It doesn't matter how wealthy you are you will have to deal with grief.

Doesn't matter how healthy your family's been 1 day somebody's gonna get sick.

The world is just that way and in fact it's 1 of the criticisms of Christianity.

David Hume is a British philosopher and he has this famous saying.

He said if God is omnipotent, omniscient, and holy good, whence evil or why is there evil.

If God wills to prevent evil but cannot then he is not omnipotent.

If he can prevent evil but does not then he is not good.

Let me tell you that as a Christian who wants to share the good news of the gospel, 1 of the things you must be able to explain is how it is that we live in a world controlled by a good God, yet bad things happen.

In fact, this message was released for Monday night.

Monday night we have our homeschool chapel and we're going through a curriculum of apologetics and this was supposed to be Monday night, but based on things going on, I kind of moved it here, so we'll talk about the nature of God on Monday night, but if you can't answer this question, it will rattle your faith when catastrophe reaches your home.

If you can't answer this question, when you see war, pestilence, or storm destroy life you'll say man maybe this God they want me to follow doesn't make sense.

How much does the devil want you to know this?

Well in the this is from 1 of the Superman movies, I don't remember which 1, this guy is playing Lex Luthor.

That picture back there is an inverted version of a picture of the fall of Satan and Lex Luthor in this DC comic book movie actually quotes David Hume and asks the question if God is so good why is there evil if he's so strong why doesn't he stop it basically the same question exposing a whole new generation to this philosophy the question is tough Why does God allow evil in the world?

If he's truly good, why do bad things happen?

And why do bad things happen to good people?

Why does God allow earthquakes and storms, wars, disease?

And the answer comes in 2 words, free will.

To understand why God did not just shut down evil from the beginning, you have to understand that God is a God who wants you to be able to make a choice.

It is free will, and free will resides in the frontal lobe of your brain.

It is the same part of the brain when the Bible says that God's name must be written in your forehead.

It is in the frontal lobe, in the prefrontal cortex of the brain that God's name is written because name represents what?

That is exactly where God wants to write his name.

That's where he wants to place his character.

Unfortunately, in too few pulpits across the nominations in America are we preaching that the call of the Christian isn't simply to be blessed, it is actually to become more like Christ.

But in order to understand this, there are a few things we're going to go through quickly.

This gives in the great controversy Satan an advantage because Satan is not only able to lie, the Bible says he is the father of lies.

So when you are dealing with Satan, and it's interesting, we'll come back to Halloween in a minute, but when you deal with these satanic organizations, they almost all say, we don't really believe in a real Satan, we don't worship a real Satan, it's just a philosophical stance we have.

But you can't trust them because literally they worship the person who is the father of lies.

Titus 1-2, in hope of eternal life, which God that cannot lie promised before the world began.

Hebrews 6 18, that by 2 immutable things in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation.

We have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us.

The second thing God cannot do, God cannot increase or diminish in knowledge.

Watch this, it is impossible for God to learn because he already knows everything.

First John 3.20, for if our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart and knows what?

The third thing God cannot do, God cannot be tempted with evil and cannot tempt others.

Let no 1 say when he is tempted I am being tempted by God, for God cannot be tempted with evil and He tempts no 1.

Another thing God cannot do, God cannot change.

The Bible says in Malachi 3, 6, for I am the Lord, I what?

There are people who say, no God has changed now.

He allows this now even though he didn't allow it then.

James 1 7, for every good gift and every perfect gift is from above and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variable in this, neither shadow of turning.

Isaiah 40 28, Hast thou not known, hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the earth, faints not, neither is weary, there is no searching of his understanding.

Before the world was, he existed all the way back to eternity, and after the world ends he will exist all through eternity.

This is why the doctrine of the state of the dead is such an important doctrine because it says that the only 1 who has immortality is God.

But the sixth 1, the last 1 I will touch on today, is that God cannot force you to love him.

Here's where the great controversies rub actually is.

This is why evil is really allowed in the world because God wants you to be able to choose him and watch this the greater the depth of the disparity and evil in the world the greater your understanding of how much God wants your love.

He has allowed the world to go into the condition it's in because he wants our love.

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If God, Why Evil?

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