GYC 2025: Seeing the Invisible

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Generation. Youth. Christ. (GYC)

Answering the Angels

Kameron DeVasher

01 Why Is There Evil in the Universe?

02 How Can an Honest God Defeat a Lying Devil?

03 Why Didn’t Satan Die at Calvary, Too?

04 How Will God Destroy the Wicked Fairly and Finally?

05 Will Heaven Be Safe With Us in It?

Dear Heavenly Father, thank you so much for this absolutely beautiful day.

Thank you for the opportunity to have life at all, and particularly, Lord, for the privilege of knowing you and the hope of eternal life that you provide.

Help it not only to be clear, but to be convincing, convicting, and by the power of the Holy Spirit, converting to the soul.

Lord, help us to know you and become like you, for we pray it in Jesus' name, amen.

All right, you're going to need your Bibles.

Now I've got presentation slides on the screen and I'll let you know ahead of time the very last slide and our presentation today will be a QR code where you can download all the slides for this presentation series, okay?

So if you stick by, you're welcome to take pictures and please take notes and all those kind of things, but if you need that, that will be provided at the end, okay?

So a whole seminar, as you might have heard last night, is entitled Answering the Angels, and it's about these questions.

We often talk about skeptics having questions about God, criticisms about how could a good God make such a bad world, and why is it, all these different things, which are legitimate concerns.

1 thing I have discovered through this study is that not only do skeptics have those questions, loyal believers have those questions, faithful angels of God who've never fallen have the exact same questions and even more.

I think we're going to run into some questions you didn't even know were questions and be like, oh man, I'm glad we talked about this before I ran out into this in the wild, okay?

But let's talk about some of these things.

First of all, why is there evil in the universe?

This is the framework foundational 1 that many skeptics have their exit ramp from belief because of wrestling with this question So let's dive right into it.

If you have your Bible, I'm sorry since you have your Bibles Let's take them out to Matthew chapter 13 Matthew chapter 13.

This is a day full of parables in Jesus' ministry and honestly it doesn't particularly stand out as a notable parable.

I mean it's, and then another parable, and then another parable.

And it starts in verse 24, it's the parable of the wheat and the tares, but it starts saying, another parable he put forth to them.

And then in verse 31, another parable he put forth.

So it's just, and verse 33, another parable.

So he's just a day full of telling important stories, parables, but for some reason this 1 stands out, and we know it does as we keep reading.

But let's look at it, starting with verse 24.

The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field.

Now we're gonna break this 1 as Randy Skeet would say, microscopically, okay?

First of all, The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed.

So he's the owner of the field and he's the sower of the seed, yes?

It just kind of introduces these other men sleeping.

But while men slept, his enemy, now we've got a third character, his enemy, I don't know if you catch this, but it doesn't just say an enemy.

His enemy, like these dudes know each other.

His enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat and did what else?

He sowed good seed and while men slept in the cover of darkness, his enemy comes in and goes out another way.

So the story continues, but when the grain had sprouted and produced a crop, then the tares also appeared.

I don't know how many of you have had that experience when you went to vacation Bible school, or elementary school, or Sabbath school, and they wanted to teach you about agriculture, and they'll give you a seed in a Styrofoam cup with some dirt, or maybe the toothpicks on the avocado, you know, and I was just enthralled by these agriculture metaphors when I was a kid, and I had these like jack in the beanstalk expectations that as soon as the seed touches the soil and the water activates it, boom, overnight, I'm gonna come back and you're gonna have a fruity.

But you know what happens, you put that seed in the dirt, low water, you come back the next day, nothing.

And It doesn't take too much of that for a young child's hyperactivity to be like, this just doesn't work, I hate it.

The point is that when you sow seed, good or bad, it doesn't instantly spring up and appear.

But when the grain had sprouted and produced a crop, then the tares also appeared.

So it's not like it's only tares, but they also appeared.

So now you have a garden, you have a field with 2 crops growing intertwined.

Now we're introduced to the servants of the owner.

I'm just gonna go ahead and throw it out.

I believe that these are the men who are sleeping.

Now let's talk about, are they loyal to the owner?

They are, and notice, they treat him kindly.

Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field?

The owner did not outsource the sowing of the seed, but the cultivation of the crop and the harvesting, he does employ servants to do.

So apparently he sowed the seed, he hires these servants, and now apparently he told them, I have planted a field full of wheat, I'd like you to go work it.

But when they look down, what do they see?

Sir, respectfully, did you not sow good seed in your field?

And notice there is a discrepancy between what he said and what he said and what they see.

This creates a problem to solve and they respectfully Ask him about it, sir Did you not sow good seed in your field?

So I want to emphasize this by asking the question are they demonstrating disloyalty Is it possible to be loyal to God and have questions for God?

Not only am I going to pause it this week, that not only is it possible, I believe he invites it.

He says, come let us raise, he expects us to have questions because we're dealing with some big, difficult things.

Don't blithely like, okay, No, no, let's think through it.

Series

Answering the Angels

01 Why Is There Evil in the Universe?

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

Ron Clouzet ~ A Voice Behind You: How To Know God's Will For Your Life

Suspended Judgment and Other Great Habits

1h

GYC 2012 Seminar: Revolutionary Apologetics - The Adventist Edge

Genocidal God or Just Judge. New Material on Genocide in the Old Testament

56m

Raymond Holmes: Studies in 1 John

To Tell the Truth

57m

How to Study the Bible

02 Contemplating the Glory of God

1h 8m

Cosmic Conflict

3. Free Will and the Sovereignty of God

1h 1m

Love and Life in God's Will

01 Guessed by Faith

30m

Jay Gallimore and Paul Ratsara - The Heart of a Servant: Models of Biblical Leadership

The Heart of a Servant, Part 4

57m

GYC 2013 Seminar: The Composite Christian: Character Development

04-God vs. Satan: Patmos

49m

GYC 2012 Plenary Sessions

My Testimony

44m

The Book of Proverbs

6. Proverbs: What You See Is Not What You Get

46m

Richard O'Ffill - God the Comforter: the Holy Spirit's Role in Your Life

More than Meets the Eye: Take it or Leave It

55m

GYC 2013 Seminar: The Neophyte and the Great Controversy

04-The Neophyte and The Great Controversy, Part 4

1h

Sound Doctrine