InVerse 1st Quarter 2026: Apologetics

Felecia Lee

Joe Reeves

Paul Samuel

Jonathan Walter

Hope Channel

04 The Problem of Evil

Coming to you from Silver Spring, Maryland, welcome to Inverse, a Bible-based conversation on life principles, contemporary issues, and thought-provoking perspectives.

Now here's your host, Joe Reeves, with Inverse.

Hello, my name is Joe, and welcome to Inverse Bible Study, where we get into the verse and we study the Bible together.

And we are studying this season about apologetics and diving into 1 of the most difficult and common questions today about suffering about the problem of evil and so glad you could join us so glad I have friends here at the table with me Sebastian welcome.

Aloha glad you're here for the show is back I Joe you're here and Jonathan still here.

Haha yes, you know with this group we never know what's going to come, but it's always or usually good.

We are glad to be here at this table and ask about the problem of suffering and where does it come from and what does it mean about God and why is there Evil in this world.

Yeah, let's pray Heavenly Father we are so grateful for the privilege of life and the privilege of being able to study your Word, especially as we turn our minds to this topic, a defense for God in light of the evil that exists in this world.

And evil is 1 of the things, Lord, that is most undeniable about what the word of God teaches us.

So we pray, Lord, that you would guide our conversation, be with our thoughts and our understanding.

And we pray with David that you would open our eyes, that we may behold wondrous things from your law.

You know, it's hard to imagine the Bible without the book of Job.

It is defining, it creates orientation to the whole canon of scripture, I think.

And so this story is hopefully 1 that's familiar and 1 that we should understand well and see new depth to.

We're going to start in the first verse of the book of Job and understand this story and what it tells us about our own stories.

There was a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job and that man was blameless and upright and 1 who feared God and shunned evil And 7 sons and 3 daughters were born to him.

Also, his possessions were 7, 000 sheep, 3, 000 camels, 500 yoke of oxen, 500 female donkeys, and a very large household.

So that this man was the greatest of all the people of the East.

And his sons would go and feast in their houses each on his appointed day, and would send and invite their 3 sisters to eat and drink with them.

So it was when the days of feasting had run their course that Job would send and sanctify them, and he would rise early in the morning and offer burnt offerings according to the number of them all.

For Job said, it may be that my sons have sinned and cursed God in their hearts.

Thus Job did regularly." Smooth sailing so far.

Any observations you want to make about the life of Job, about his faith?

The story is an interesting story if you know the whole book.

We do believe that it's an actual real story, not some kind of allegory, but we think it was, you know, before Abraham, and that he was 1 of those individuals who had that faith in God, maybe passed down throughout his family, from, you know, from the descendants of Noah.

And I think that's always a good thing to see.

You see he was blameless and upright, 1 who feared God and shunned evil.

Something that is not easy to do today, and something that was never easy to do.

And so I think that sets the stage to the rest of the story.

But just so we know, Time-wise, we think it was probably in the third millennia before Christ, around that time.

Okay, so 1 of the earliest narratives or biographies.

Yes, yes, definitely before Moses, before Israelites and Abraham.

And if you consider some of the aspects of Job are, you know, first mentions this character, right?

Then you see the fact that of his family, so we understand that in the Bible, having children was a sign of blessing, the fact that you were barren was a negative thing, it meant like God's blessing was not upon you, but he has 10 children.

Then you go to the fact that he was wealthy, right?

500 yoke of oxen in verse 3, he has 500 female donkeys and a very large household, so that's all his servants.

Then you see his reputation, he was, this man was the greatest of all the people of the East.

And then you go down to verse 5, and it says that he was a faithful priest of his home.

And then at the end, anybody can be holy for a phase, right?

You can get all 5 of those things correct for like a day, maybe a couple weeks, but then it ends by saying, thus Job did regularly.

And I love the fact that 1 Christian author says that a changed life is a great miracle, but a consistent 1 is another great miracle.

And so people can be great for a moment, but Joe, we're looking at somebody here that, if I told you this is how the story started, you would not think this book is 42 chapters.

You'd be thinking, hey, this brother right here took the gospel to all of his area, brought all these people to God.

And it's interesting for us that on a topic of apologetics on the problem of evil, we're starting with a man's life who is basically unparalleled to what we see today.

Yeah, Job's story kind of reminds me of the Genesis story in a way.

The book of Genesis starts off with everything just beautiful and prospers, and then the devil comes in and then messes everything up.

And so the story starts out where he just prospers.

Like how could anything go wrong in this story until the accuser steps in?

It would be nice if we could end the story there.

I mean, that's what I want my life to be.

Don't worry, Sebastian, you're not there yet.

Just keeping my brother in the place of humility and constant growth in Christ, amen.

Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord and Satan also came among them.

And The Lord said to Satan, from where do you come?

So Satan answered the Lord and said, from going to and fro on the earth and from walking back and forth on it.

Then the Lord said to Satan, have you considered my servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, 1 who fears God and shuns evil?

So Satan answered the Lord and said, Does Job fear God for nothing?

Have you not made a hedge around him, around his household, and around all that he has on every side?

You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land.

But now stretch out your hand and touch all that he has and he will surely curse you to your face The Lord said to Satan behold Satan all behold all that He has is in your power only do not lay a hand on his person So Satan went out from the presence of the Lord.

So suddenly the camera that was pointed to earth and to Job and his family is now pointed to heaven.

William Guthrie

Advent HOPE Sabbath School

The Antidote to Pain

Let's start with prayer this morning as we seek the Lord together.

Father in heaven, we thank you so much for your goodness and your love toward us.

In a world that is full of uncertainty, full of pain, We just look to you and we ask that you would be here this morning as we ponder your goodness and your love and pray that you would send your Holy Spirit to be with us, in Jesus' name, amen.

Okay, so in line with the theme, I don't know how this all came together this way, but I didn't even select the picture with this story in mind, but a few years ago I was skiing with some friends.

And we were up in the Lake Tahoe area, and we'd driven several extra hours to get to this particular ski area because of the terrain there.

It had steep terrain, and I like steep terrain on skis.

As we pulled into the parking lot, There was still a bit of weather hovering over the mountain, clouds and things like that.

We jumped out of the car, got into our skis.

And we headed straight to the top of the mountain on the lift.

And I think it was about the second run in, though, that I identified a cliff.

And some of you would say, well, you're crazy.

You know, nobody should be skiing around cliffs.

But I thought, and I sometimes think that, you know, Cliffs are fun to ski off of.

So this cliff looked like it had a good landing, and I was eager to take advantage of this challenging terrain that we'd come to this resort for.

The snow conditions were great, And so I sent my friends ahead.

They went down to the bottom of the cliff and scouted out the landing.

And I stood at the top and mentally prepared.

Has anybody stood on top of a high dive, like 1 of the really high dives, you know?

The longer you ponder it, the worse it gets, right?

But eventually, they gave me the all clear.

And I proceeded to ski directly off the cliff and straight into, remember that weather I was talking about?

And what happened was, the landing came up very abruptly, as you might imagine, because my frame of reference, have you ever tried to ski in a cloud, or walk in a cloud?

You get nauseated because your body has, it's like riding on a roller coaster, and your body has no frame of reference.

As I contacted the snow, I immediately felt my body get thrown forward.

My boots ejected from the bindings on my skis.

As I continued to hurtle forward, I met the front end of 1 of my skis coming up the other way.

The rigid material of the ski proved to be unforgiving to the tissue of my upper lip.

It happened way too fast, I couldn't even think about it.

The shock hadn't worn off before I discovered quite a bit of blood pouring out of my upper lip.

My friends graciously slid slowly beside me as I gingerly made my way down the ski slope, leaving a trail of red snow all the way down the mountain, intervently stopping to exchange a red snowball for a white 1.

At least there was a virtually unlimited supply of what we could refer to as nature's gauze.

So we proceeded down, entered and asked them, where's the urgent care here?

Most ski areas of size have a little, you know, casualty area where you can get some help.

And I met a really nice ER physician there.

She was staffing the place, and she offered to stitch up the damage my ski had done, although she did admit she wasn't a plastic surgeon.

I tried not to pay too much attention to that, and agreed that it was probably the best thing to do to go ahead with getting things taken care of.

But what I wasn't prepared for, I see Dr.

Moret over here, he's glued in on this, was the anesthetic going into my upper lip.

And many of you will know that the lip and nose area is highly innervated.

And as an aside, I've never been afraid, I've never been a fan of vaccines at all, or needles in general.

And when I was a kid, I think the pediatrician's office, or the pediatricians must have, at least the staff at the pediatrician's office, must have known me as a Houdini or something like that.

I remember on 1 occasion, after I'd escape the exam room, they had to pursue me down the hall and catch me and drag me back, only to hold me down and treat me like a human pincushion for a little bit.

But back in the Kirkwood urgent care, those nerves were doing an exceptional job of transmitting the sensation of what felt like 1000 bees descending on my upper lip.

I forgot all about getting poked with a needle, and despite my valiant effort, there was no holding them back.

The tears just flowed freely, adding saline liquid to the mixture of lidocaine and blood.

But if I lost you in the details, the pain was excruciating, but thankfully, short-lived.

The doctor did what turned out to be an excellent job of repairing the lacerations.

With the day cut short due to the injury and subsequent repair, we returned home.

Looking back, the worst part in retrospect was all the missed skiing that we had.

In medicine, we have an entire subspecialty dedicated to treating pain.

Not to mention all the other specialties that treat various painful conditions.

We have medications, procedures, surgeries, and even psychotherapy for treating pain.

Usually It's easier if we know it will end.

But prolonged pain can be even harder to deal with.

If you know anyone or have experienced chronic pain, I've had my own little bout with chronic pain due to my excessive pickleball engagement.

Over the past few years, I developed an overuse injury with nagging pain in my neck that would worsen every time I played pickleball.

If you haven't seen me on the court, that's probably why.

It probably wasn't helped by my penchant for trying to smash the ball as hard as I could, though.

Pain isn't something most of us want to experience.

But pain is not also without any purpose, right?

We pull back from hot items to avoid being burned.

We stop activities or behaviors, like pickleball in my case, when they cause pain, because we inherently know that they may be causing us harm.

And so far, we've only been talking about physical pain, but what about other types of pain?

If you've ever experienced the end of a relationship, you may know the pain of rejection, a broken heart.

That pain can also be quite physical, right?

Others may have experienced the pain of losing a loved 1.

Or maybe more applicable in the academic setting is the pain of failure.

I wound up failing a few tests in medical school and when I lived at the house just down here on campus street, I remember trying to prepare for the part 1 of the boards and I just seemed like all of my classmates had made it to the top of Mount Everest and were putting their country's flag up there while I was trying to figure out how to use crampons and an ice axe at base camp.

It just didn't seem like it would be possible, but God is good and he got me through that.

I wound up failing a few tests at medical school though and having to retake the last of my licensing exams during my residency after failing on my first attempt.

But I'm grateful that failure does not define us.

I know there's others here who can attest to that.

My current job is in the field of addiction medicine.

GYC 2025: Seeing the Invisible

Last Day Events, The Remnant, and Church Organization

Mark Finley

Generation. Youth. Christ. (GYC)

01 Revelation’s Remnant

Father in heaven, thank you so much for the opportunity to work here in this seminar together, to study together really, to sense your spirit working among us, clearly outline the events that are coming so that we can be prepared for them.

Lead us to a deep abiding experience with Jesus.

Enable us to know your will and Father prepare us for what's coming in Christ's name.

Now let's suppose you are attending a concert in Carnegie Hall.

All right, Let's suppose you're attending a concert in Carnegie Hall.

And you have looked forward to this concert.

It's a special event that you've saved for, you've purchased tickets for.

And about in the middle of the concert, some guy jumps up and cries, fire, fire, fire.

First, the guy is an absolute lunatic, and you're hoping that some New York security guards will come and carry the guy out.

Second choice is the guy's a terrorist, and he wants people to jump up so he can pull out his guns and start shooting people.

The third possibility is that there is really a fire.

Would your attitude toward the guy who stands up be any different if it's 1 of those 3 scenes?

If the guy's a lunatic, you're thinking to yourself, this guy's absolutely crazy, he's interrupting my concert.

If the guy's a terrorist, your heart is filled with fear.

But if this is really a fire, at the end of that, when people are evacuated, everybody's safe, you're gonna throw your arms around the guy and say, thank you for saving my life.

When you look at coming events or last-day events, We are looking at something that comes to us from the heart of a loving God because there is a genuine crisis that's coming.

It's not some wild-eyed fanaticism, but it's rather a loving God shares with us a message in the last days to prepare people for the coming crisis.

Now when you study coming events there are 3 things to keep in mind.

First, Jesus makes clear what's most important.

There is no area that I know of that has greater speculation than the area of last day events.

You get all kind of speculation that takes place, but Jesus makes clear what is it, what's most important.

So if something is not real clear, It obviously is not real important.

So we're not going to look at speculation in this class.

We're not going to look at what might happen and because somebody's theory of 7 popes from Revelation 17 or all this kind of stuff.

We're not gonna look at these purported time periods that from this national Sunday law to the close of probation, it has to be.

We are gonna look at clear, lucid statements in the Bible and the spirit of prophecy.

That's where we are going to land in this class.

Secondly, there are 3 principles we're going to look at.

Second principle, Jesus is the center of all prophecy.

If you present prophecy without presenting a Christocentric Jesus center of prophecy, wherever you end up you're not going to end up right because what is the purpose of prophecy?

The purpose of prophecy is to prepare a people for the coming of whom?

And so Jesus must be the center of all prophecy.

The third thing is Jesus has given us last-day events not to scare us, not to frighten us, but to prepare us.

If you study last-day events and you come away frightened and scared, if you come away trembling, think, oh, I can never make it through that time, there's something wrong with that approach, because Jesus does not give us last day events to frighten us.

He doesn't give us last day events to scare us.

He gives us last day events to prepare us and to encourage us.

Now, I want you to take your Bible and turn to 1 Thessalonians chapter 5.

Of course, to get the most out of this seminar, you're going to want to be bringing your Bibles.

Now, you'll remember in 1 Thessalonians chapter 4, the Apostle Paul talks about the coming of Jesus.

He talks about Jesus coming in power and glory.

He talks about the reality of the resurrection, the resurrection of the righteous, the resurrection of the translation of the righteous.

Paul says, the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, with the trump of God and the dead in Christ who rise first, and we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them to meet the Lord in the air.

The Thessalonian Christians then need to understand something about the day of the Lord.

And if you look at First Thessalonians, chapter 5, verse 5, 6 and 7, it says, but you, brethren, are not in darkness that that that this day, what's this day?

The second coming of Jesus should overtake you as a thief.

You are sons of light and not sons of day and our sons of the day.

Therefore, let us not sleep as others, but let us watch and be sober.

So Paul is saying, look, we can have clarity about the coming of Jesus.

We're not sons of the night, we are sons and daughters of the day.

God has given to us light on the road ahead.

In the eighth volume of the Testimonies, page 28, I read this important statement, transgression has almost reached its limit.

So here Ellen White says transgression has almost reached its limit.

Back to Menu

All Teachings

04 The Problem of Evil

29m

The Antidote to Pain

42m

01 Revelation’s Remnant

54m

01 A Generation Addicted: Drugs, Demons, and a Rising Death Toll

55m

04 Unity Through Humility

26m

The Day That Changes Every Day

28m

Show Me Your Glory

1h 13m

04 Unity Through Humility

28m

04 Unity Through Humility

30m

Interview with the Wilsons

48m

A Costly Enterprise

1h 43m

One Heart at a Time: Christ’s Mission Continues

50m

Sound Doctrine