Michigan Camp Meeting 2023: The Boldness of the Cross

Theodicy

Travis Smith

Michigan Conference of Seventh-day Adventists

Freedom and Risk & Does God Get Everything He Wants

You are about to enjoy a presentation recorded at the 2023 Michigan Conference Camp Meeting held at Cedar Lake, Michigan.

We pray that the Lord will bless you as you listen.

Father in heaven, thank you that it's Tuesday.

Thank you that we're here at Camp Meeting and you are changing us from what we were to what we are going to be.

Some of us were much different 20 years ago.

Lord, we thank you that you change us and that you use the power of the gospel to take from what was to what will.

If God is entirely good, and the big word for that is omnibenevolent, and all-powerful, and the big word for that is omnipotent, Why is there evil in a world that God has created?

Because if God gets everything he wants, evil exists, then you must conclude that God wants evil.

Some thinkers resolve this perceived dilemma either by denying God's omnipotence or his omnibenevolence.

Many theologians who affirm both divine characteristics appeal to the free will defense.

This perspective claims that although God is entirely good and possesses the power to exclude evil altogether, God allows evil because to do otherwise would negate creaturely free will.

Some believe that since God knows the future perfectly, He knows everything that's going to happen, we cannot possess free will.

Today we're going to deal with the biblical concept of self-determination versus human free will.

Some time ago, there was a conference that 1 of our best Christian apologists, who is now sleeping in Jesus, Ravi Zacharias, spoke and someone posed the question, since we cannot surprise God with our actions, doesn't that mean that we do not have free will?

And furthermore, since we do not have free will, isn't God's judgment an act of immorality?

Because if God has a will that cannot be stopped, and that means that if we sinned, then it must mean that God willed us to sin, so therefore banishing us to hell would be therefore immoral because we were doing that which we were programmed to do.

My question is, since the Bible has been scientifically disproven as far as all the claims, you know, the revolution, the theory of evolution, the archeology, you know, Noah's Ark, Adam and Eve.

Since we know this didn't happen because of our science, science nowadays.

My question is, how do we have, according to the Bible, how do we have free will if God is this omniscient being that knows everything about us, everything we will do.

And he pretty much knows our outcome before we're even created.

So he creates us knowing everything we'll do.

Since we can't surprise him by our actions, we have no free will.

And that the act of judgment is completely immoral because he knows what we're gonna do.

And before you go into an auditorium, you can give a sheet of paper and ask us to write 20 possible questions that'll come.

We've never heard a new 1 in all of these years that go by.

It's interesting that you began by saying as an atheist all of this has been disproved and so you live with scientific materialism as your world view.

I studied under John Hockinghorn at Cambridge University, you probably know the name, 1 of the world's leading quantum physicists who came to exactly the opposite conclusion you did, while being the dean at Queen's College, Cambridge as a quantum physicist, taking the same data you did.

So obviously for a man of his intellectual ability to come to a different conclusion, 1 would either have to say he's totally stupid to come to that conclusion, or else his empirical basis, please don't keep shaking your head, let me finish, so that you can come and talk afterwards so you'll ask to concentrate what we're saying here.

I want to read for you what David Berlinski says about the scientific naturalistic world.

1 of the world's leading physicists, was an agnostic, was on atheism, but took issue with Richard Dawkins' book, The God Delusion, and wrote a book called The Devil's Delusion.

Has anyone ever provided proof of God's inexistence?

Has quantum cosmology explained the emergence of the universe or why it is here?

Have the sciences explained why our universe seems to be fine tuned to allow for the existence of life?

Are physicists and biologists willing to believe in anything as long as it is not religious thought?

Has rationalism and moral thought provided us with an understanding of what is good, what is right, and what is moral?

Has secularism in the terrible 20th century been a force for good?

Is there a narrow and oppressive orthodoxy of thought and opinion within the sciences?

Does anything in the sciences or in their philosophy justify the claim that religious belief is irrational, not even in the ballpark?

Is scientific atheism a frivolous exercise in intellectual contempt?

Ethan, Ethan, what you're wrestling with is not uncommon.

Many people from a scientific and materialistic world view will say what you've said and come to that conclusion.

The problem is what you mispositioned was your concern between determinism and free will.

I was, your application could have gone in many different directions, but you came to that 1 for some reason, which I was unfortunate, I think.

At Cambridge, I listened to a talk at the Lady Mitchell Hall in 1990 by Stephen Hawking.

As you know, he can't speak, He uses a speech synthesizer.

His whole talk was on determinism and freedom.

And he only concluded that the tragedy of its scientific materialism, if we take its assumptions, is that we are not free.

That was the world's leading physicist at that time saying the very thing you're asking of the Christian faith he pinned on your backs.

Lady Mitchell Hall, 1990, somewhere around March, April, May, that time.

And he said, the only escape I have is since I don't know what has been determined, I may as well not be.

The whole auditorium moaned and groaned with an escape hatch that he gave for himself after telling us that we were completely determined.

That is actually even what people like Dawkins will concede, or Pinker, you read Steven Pinker and the others.

So the question is, were you free to ask this question?

So you're actually, as a machine, automatron asking me this question?

I mean, what I'm saying is our memories and our states...

If you're totally determined, you're free-wired to think the way you do.

Mark Finley

Living Hope SDA Church

Meeting Jesus

Let's pray together as we open the Word of God.

Father in heaven, I pray Thee that in the next few moments, as we consider the significance of communion, that you would burn into our minds in a deeper way the significance of the bread, the significance of the wine, and the significance of this service.

Jerusalem, the city of peace, had no peace that day.

Conflict was in the air, the streets were tense.

Palestinians and Israelis were in the midst of another heated battle.

Palestinian youth pelted the police with rocks and the Israeli police responded with tear gas to disperse the crowds.

Now the hatred between those 2 groups boiled over into the streets, But yet inside a very small Adventist church in Jerusalem there was calm.

That day we were celebrating communion and I sat there with a Palestinian who had given his life to Jesus and become a Christian.

And I sat there with a Jew because there was an odd number for foot washing.

And so I had the privilege of participating with a Jew and with a Palestinian.

And I couldn't help but think, out in the street they're throwing rocks.

Out in the street they have Molotov cocktails that they have lit, and cars are on fire, and there's riots in the streets.

But yet in this little Adventist church, there is peace, there is calm.

And unheard of, a Jew knelt down and washed a Palestinian from Bethlehem's feet.

Because you know Bethlehem is Arab territory, it's Palestinian.

And at the end of that service, we stand together and throw our arms around 1 another and talk about Jesus.

The cross of Christ brings people from different ethnicities, different backgrounds, different cultures together.

So let's look briefly at 7 eternal lessons from the communion services that speak to our hearts today.

They were written in the first century, but they speak to us in the 21st century.

They were given at another time in another place, but they speak to us at this time in this place.

We begin by looking at 1 Corinthians chapter 11.

If you have your Bible, please take it and turn to 1 Corinthians, the 11th chapter.

And 1 lesson that summarizes the entire service.

For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the same night in which he was betrayed took bread.

Verse 24, when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, Take eat.

This is my body, which is broken for you.

Now in that verse 24, there are 3 phrases.

Take eat, this is my body which is broken for you, this do in remembrance of me.

Let's look at the first 3 lessons from the bread.

Now the bread in the communion service represents the spiritual nourishment through Christ in the Word of God.

Take your Bible please and turn to John chapter 6.

When we partake of the bread at the communion service, 1 of the first things that we are noticing is this.

Just as bread becomes part of our nerve, our tissue, and our sinew, so the Word of God provides spiritual nourishment for the soul.

Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness and are dead.

This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that 1 might eat it and not die.

I am the living bread which came down from heaven.

If anyone eats of this bread, he shall live forever.

And the bread that I shall give is my flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world.

How do you eat the bread that comes down from heaven?

What does it mean to eat and drink the flesh of the Son of God?

Jeremiah gives us some help in Jeremiah 15, verse 16.

Jeremiah chapter 15, and you're looking there at verse 16.

What does it mean to eat the flesh of the Son of God?

Notice what it says in Jeremiah 15, verse 16.

Your word was to me the joy and rejoicing of my heart, for I'm called by your name, the Lord God of hosts." So the communion bread represents Christ, the living word.

And as we study the living word, we eat and drink the flesh of the son of God because it is in the living Word that we find the living Christ.

Now there's a statement in a wonderful book called Desire of Ages.

Now if you can't find it, you can always read it from the screen.

It is by receiving the life poured out for us on Calvary's cross that we can live a life of holiness.

And this life we receive by receiving His Word.

This life, that is the life of Christ, We receive how?

Because Jesus said in John 6, verse 63, the words that I speak to you, they are spirit and they are life.

So here's lesson number 1 from Communion today.

Never forget, it's the Word of God that nourishes our spiritual life.

We are not nourished by the latest Hollywood productions.

We are not shaped by the culture around us.

Filling our minds with the living Word of God is life transformational.

The bread also represents Christ's provision for our daily needs.

When we take that communion bread today, We are saying, Jesus, You can provide every need of my life.

In the Old Testament, when manna was rained down from heaven, what did that signify?

When they came into the sanctuary, in the holy place of the sanctuary after they left the court, and found the bread on the table of showbread.

It meant that Jesus would provide their needs continually.

So when you and I take the communion bread, notice this statement that I've listed here for you.

To the death of Christ, we owe even this earthly life.

The bread we eat is the purchase of his broken body.

The water we drink is bought by his spilled blood.

Never 1, saint or sinner, eats his daily food, but is nourished by the body and blood of Christ.

Melanie’s Problem

Father in heaven, we thank you for this time that we have to spend time in your word.

As we journey through this series, Lord, we just pray that we would all grow together as a little family here in the Boys Dorm Chapel.

Lord, we ask that you would help us to understand and make truth plain.

Okay, so people always wonder, where can I read about this topic of theodicy?

And theodicy is just a big word for the problem of human suffering.

If you want to impress your friends with theological knowledge, call it theodicy.

The first topic is called Melanie's Problem and the Problem of Human Suffering.

Here are the books that I have read on this topic, and if you really want to really understand this topic well, I mean deeply, so that you can really talk about it and help people who go through loss and tragedy, The first book is Philip Yancey, Where is God When It Hurts.

And this is my favorite because it was the first book that I read.

And of course, there's only 2 of these books on the book list that is Adventist, so of course you have to be a good horse and spit out the mud and eat the grass.

So I developed this book into 17 or 18 sermons and I had to make it Adventist, so you understand what I'm saying.

And then Theodicy of Love by John Peckham.

This is a Seventh-day Adventist author and to my knowledge, this is the first scholarly book that is written on the topic of of theodicy.

I think he's working with the Adventist Review now.

This book is part 2 to this 1, Satan and the Problem of Evil.

This is letters that he wrote his dad on the question of human suffering.

And then this book is by your friend David Asherick and Nathan Renner.

And then this book, The Problem of Pain by C.S.

And then these last 2, did God really command genocide by Paul Copin and Matthew Flanagan?

This 1 is making sense of the Old Testament God, and this 1 is specifically on the genocide or destruction of the Canaanites.

And we have those questions about the Canaanites.

We don't have time to get into every little thing that there has to do with this topic and 5 sermons.

So we're going to try to hit the big big topics.

You are going to have about 6, 7 years of reading if you buy all those books.

So the reason why I have developed this series of studies is because in 2012, I think it was September 12th, my mother died in a car accident and I grew up with her coming home from the hospital.

She basically kept the hospital in business by herself.

And I thought that she was going to come home from, Tom, there's a handout right by the chair.

If anybody doesn't have a handout, it's right on the chair.

So I grew up with my mom coming home from the hospital.

And she didn't come home from the hospital.

And I'm, you know the Bible says, if you have faith of a mustard seed, you can move mountains, right?

I asked God to resurrect my mother when she was there laying on the gurney in the hospital and the chaplain came in and he said we need to have another family move in, it is time for you to leave." And I was a little angered by that because this was the last time I would ever see my mom.

She's a Vax'ilot and Adventist, living with her boyfriend in Columbus.

And I was like trying to make deals with God.

If you resurrect mom, she'll have to believe and she'll come back to church.

And then the Lord later convicted me with the story of the rich man and Lazarus.

Even if 1 rises from the dead, they will not repent.

They have Moses and the prophets here them.

In other words, the Word of God should be good enough.

A miracle isn't good enough if the Word isn't good enough.

You got to stick with the Lord when you have questions.

You have to stick with God and give Him time to answer your questions.

So I put my hand in my mother's hand, and man, it was just, rigor mortis set in and it was stiff and her pinky was out like that just a little bit.

And I squeezed her hand and I expected her to squeeze my hand and just sit straight up.

And she just sat there and didn't resurrect.

And I kissed her forehead and it was like kissing a bag of frozen peas.

And from about 3 years forward after that, I was angry.

But they were like little one-sentence, drive-by-shooting prayers.

Lord, please bless my people as they hear this sermon." They were really short, really unfather-son like prayers.

It's bad when a pastor goes through a faith crisis.

And you need to pray for your pastors, because sometimes pastors make mistakes.

And this book right here was the first book that I read.

And I wrote an email to the pastor, he's a non-denominational pastor in Minnesota, and he never wrote me back, I wonder why.

And the concept that gave me my faith back, I'm going to share with you on Friday.

You've got to come back on Friday to hear the answer of the simple concept of what gave me my faith back.

But I think you're really going to enjoy this seminar as we go along.

So that is the reason why I have put these series together and done all of this reading.

Jeremy Arnall

South Bay SDA Church

What’s that You’re Eating?

Dutch diamond collector was seeking for a very rare diamond.

Winston heard of his inquiry and he reached out to the gentleman, letting him know that he believed he possessed exactly what he was looking for.

Winston had his salesman present the diamond to the gentleman.

The salesman described all the technical aspects of the diamond.

However, it was only within minutes that the diamond collector rose up and rose his hand up and said, that's not what I'm looking for as he proceeded to the exit.

Winston hurriedly intercepted as he was walking out and he asked him if he could present the diamond 1 more time.

The collector agreed, after all, he'd come this way for this very purpose.

Winston pulled out the very same diamond.

He started describing his admiration for this diamond and for this particular diamond, how he appreciated it specifically.

Back to Menu

All Teachings

Freedom and Risk & Does God Get Everything He Wants

58m

Meeting Jesus

24m

Melanie’s Problem

1h

What’s that You’re Eating?

49m

01 Preparing the Soul - Biochar

21m

P.R.A.Y. Like Never Before Part 6

1h 1m

05 Leaving a Legacy

58m

Crisis of Identity - Thoughts on 1 Peter 2:9,10

35m

14 Ephesians in the Heart

22m

14 The Law

29m

P.R.A.Y. Like Never Before Part 5

59m

04 Investing isn’t Gambling, and Gambling isn’t Investing

1h 2m

Sound Doctrine