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Good God, Bad World, Why?

SERIES: The Big Five #4 of 5

2006-08-20

PRODUCTION #: 1024

SPEAKERS: Shawn Boonstra, Mark Finley,

Some years ago, I met a lady whose husband had been savagely murdered by one of their employees. As a result, she was struggling to make ends meet and keep the family business alive at the same time.

Now, that was the kind of thing that would drive most people off the deep end, but this lady turned out to be one of the most remarkable individuals I've ever met.

With tears streaming down her cheeks, she said, "Pastor Shawn, as hard as my life is, I want to tell you something. In spite of everything that has happened to me, I'm not angry. Now, I won't pretend that I don't miss my husband, or that times aren't tough without him, but what's really remarkable is how I've been able to forgive the young man that did this. And you know something, I still love God."

Now I can honestly tell you that not everyone responds like that. Some people lash out at God, or even give up on Him altogether. So the question is this, what makes the difference? In a world of incredible suffering, can you still believe in God?

Stay with us, because today my colleague, Mark Finley, will be joining me in the studio to study one of the toughest questions in the religious world.

The other day, I heard a well-known TV personality ridiculing the faith of people who were clinging to God after a terrible natural disaster destroyed their home. As they were evacuating their house, they hung a sign over the window that said, "Jesus still walks with us."

Well, that was more than the TV host could take. "Listen," he said, "get real. God is NOT with you. You're living in a gymnasium, after all!"

And all around the world, I suppose a lot of people nodded their heads in agreement, because they find it hard to believe that a good God can let people suffer. If He really is love, why is there so much misery in this world? I think that's one of the most pressing questions raised by those who wrestle with doubt.

So today, I'm delighted to have Pastor Mark Finley with me as we meet this tough question straight on. Pastor Mark, it's great to be with you today.

MARK: Shawn in this series, we have looked at the great questions and the tough questions that the Bible presents. And we've found that there are answers. And I'm looking forward to tackling, the question of good and evil today.

SHAWN: Yeah, and that's the big question. It's the question of the ages. I've read skeptics through history who ask this: If God is everything the Bible says He is, if God is love and God is all powerful and God is all good, then where in the world did all of this evil and suffering come from? Did God create evil?

MARK: The Bible does present an amazing answer to that question. And in this case as in many others, truth is stranger than fiction. Most people picture the devil, if they believe in the devil at all, as a being in a red suit with horns and a long tail and a pitchfork and living in the innermost parts of the earth in a fiery pit.

But the Bible says in Luke, chapter 10, verse 18. These are the words of Jesus and he said, "I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven."

SHAWN: From where?

MARK: From heaven.

SHAWN: From heaven.

MARK: You may wonder (and many in our viewing audience may wonder) how did Satan get in heaven. Did God create a demon? Well the Bible helps us to understand that. The Bible does not picture Lucifer or Satan or the devil as a being with this pitchfork and horns and a red suit in a fiery pit inside of the earth. The Bible actually pictures Satan, the devil or Lucifer, as a fallen angel.

In Revelation, chapter 12, verses seven to nine, the Bible describes a colossal struggle. Now unless you understand this struggle between good and evil, some call it the great controversy between good and evil, unless you understand this, you will never fully understand why there's so much suffering and sickness in our world.

Revelation 12, why don't you read verses seven to nine.

SHAWN: It says in verse seven: "And there was war in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon and the dragon fought and his angels and prevailed not. Neither was their place found anymore in heaven. And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent called the devil and Satan which deceiveth the whole world. He was cast out into the earth and his angels were cast out with him."

MARK: God created a magnificent angel called Lucifer. That angel used his freedom of choice to rebel against God. And it is that rebellion that we see here in Revelation, chapter 12, verses seven to nine. There's this war in heaven. Satan deceived a third of the angels. In fact, the Bible says here in the passage that we have read, the great dragon, verse nine, was cast out, that serpent of old called the devil and Satan deceived the whole world.

So the question was then, what did Lucifer or Satan deceive the angelic beings about and what is the essence of this deception?

We find the answer to that in Isaiah, chapter 14, verses 12 through 14. The Bible draws aside the curtain and helps us to understand this controversy between good and evil. It helps us to understand what was going in the heart and mind of this fallen angel.

In Isaiah 14, verse 12, it says: "How you are fallen from heaven O Lucifer, the son of the morning, but you're cut down to the ground you who weaken the nations. For you have said in your heart, I will ascend into heaven. I will exalt my throne above the stars of God."

So there is a battle for the throne. Lucifer is in heaven, but he wants an exalted position. He wants to exalt his throne above the stars of God. "I'll sit on the mount of the congregation on the farther sides of the north."

Now that's an amazing phrase. The mount of congregation (every Jew knew) was Mt. Sinai. It was north of the camp of Israel. That is where God administered His law. So Satan is saying, I don't want to obey. I want to be the one that gives the law. And so there is a conflict over the throne, a conflict over the law of God.

And he says, "I'll ascend in the heights of the clouds. I'll be like the most high." So the mind and soul of Lucifer, a created being, no longer wants to worship his Creator. He says God is unfair. He says God is unjust. And God has given him freedom of choice. So God could have slapped him. God could have stamped him out immediately. But the reason God chose not to do that is because the whole universe would have thought that Lucifer was right when he charged that God was unfair and unjust and that His laws were restrictive. God wanted to demonstrate by allowing sin to go on. But sin brings disaster.

SHAWN: I think that's a great point. You know, as I'm thinking about what you're saying. I grew up in a house with three boys. And what if I had said to my brothers, our father is just a mean person, mean spirited. And dad hears what I'm saying and he takes me out back and shoots me. What are my brothers going to think? Well, I was telling the truth.

MARK: Right.

SHAWN: And so, if I'm reading you right, you're saying Lucifer in the courts of heaven was not created a devil, he was created a light bearer. He was created a beautiful angel. And yet he started to accuse God of being incapable of running the universe, saying that God is not just, God is not fair. If God would have squashed him at that moment, other angels might have thought, "I wonder if Lucifer had a point?"

MARK: Sure, they would have served God out of fear, not out of love. In fact, the book of Ezekiel, chapter 28, it says precisely the point that you have just made, Shawn. That indeed Lucifer was created as a being of perfection.

SHAWN: Ok, you're in Ezekiel 28?

MARK: Twenty-eight, and we'll look there at Ezekiel 28 and we'll start with verse 12, middle of the verse. It says, "You were the seal of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. You were in Eden, the garden of God. Every precious stone was your covering."

Then verse 17, "Your heart was lifted up because of your beauty. You corrupted your wisdom for the sake of your splendor."

So God created a magnificent angel, a being of dazzling brightness that stood near His throne. This angel coveted God's position. He coveted God's authority. He began to sow lies from heaven and he said that God was unfair and that God was unjust. This being, that God created perfectly, corrupted his wisdom by his own choices.

SHAWN: Why create us with freedom of choice? Couldn't God look down through the centuries and see the possibility that an angel might go bad? Why take that risk? Why give us that freedom?

MARK: God certainly is all-wise. He is omniscient, He is all-knowing. And He certainly can look down through the centuries and see the potentiality that human beings would make the wrong choice and the fact that they would.

But to take away that freedom of choice is not to create a human being, it's to create a robot. To take away that freedom of choice is to create a biological creature that simply responds from his own biological drives. What is it that lifts us above the animal creation? What is it that makes you really you? What is it that makes me really me?

It's not the color of our skin or the color of our eyes, or how tall or short we are or the color of our hair. That which makes us really us is the ability to make rational choices. To take that away denies our humanness. It denies who we are.

So God was willing to take the risk of enabling us to make bad choices. He was willing to give us that freedom of choice knowing that that was a real risk that we would make bad choices. Because He knew that to take that away, destroys the essence of human personality.

Let me give you an example. Suppose I could program my children.

SHAWN: Oh, wouldn't that be nice!

MARK: I have three kids, older now, but let's suppose that every morning I went to a computerized control center in my house and I put certain buttons in and my little boy would get up in the morning, "Daddy, I will eat my oatmeal. Daddy, I will do my homework."

SHAWN: Now, I've got to say, Pastor Mark, sign me up, this sounds all right.

MARK: Then you'd love it when this iron child just put their iron-cold hands on your face and said, "Daddy, I love you."

There is nothing like that little girl, Natalie, of yours and that little girl, Naomi, of yours, jumping on your lap, sleep in their eyes, putting their arms around you saying, "Dad, I love you," you know.

And so you and I want love to be spontaneous, not love that can be forced, not love that can be coerced. And God is the same way.

SHAWN: I think I can see your point. Unless we had the freedom to choose against God, what does our choice to follow Him mean?

MARK: Exactly.

SHAWN: We are following Him out of our own free will. Love is a choice that we make then. It is beautiful. Now, let's get to some of the difficult questions, though.

I was reading an insurance policy the other day and they were telling me they would cover me for everything except acts of God. If God creates a disaster, is the impression you get, then they're not going to cover me. Now where do calamities come from? Where does suffering come from? If there is a devil and there is God, why do they call it an act of God?

MARK: Well, they probably ought to call it an act of the devil, right? Acts of God? God does not create natural disasters to destroy us. It is true that Satan is a very powerful being. These natural disasters are the result of a world that is separated from God. So when you have a world that is separated from God, human beings are affected. Nature is affected. The environment is affected. All of life is affected in what we would call this planet in rebellion. And so it is true that there are raging wild fires and it is true that there are hurricanes and fires and floods and tornados, not as conscious acts of God.

But you know, the Bible says, that the earth wears old like a garment. The Bible says in the book of Romans that all of creation groans for deliverance. So the natural disasters that we see are certainly not acts of God, but they are the result of a planet that is separated from God, and the result of the activity of the evil one, Satan, who wants to sweep people into premature death.

SHAWN: You're reminding me of an old story. They say it's the oldest one in the Bible, about Job, where Job has wealth, he has a family, he has everything going right. He is a righteous man. He suddenly loses it all and if I remember correctly, God in that book, pulls back the curtain of the cosmos and shows us something interesting. There we find out who was really behind it.

MARK: Sure, if you look at Job, chapter one, the Bible talks about a council meeting in heaven and Satan comes up right to the gates of heaven. And beings evidently from unfallen worlds come. The Bible says that they gathered together there in heaven.

Satan gets up to the very gate of heaven and he says to God, he taunts God, he says, "Look at your servant, Job. You've given him everything. Just withdraw your hand." And God does not cause Job's troubles, but God allows them to take place to demonstrate a purpose. And through it all, the Bible says, Job doesn't curse God. In fact, Job himself says, "Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him."

The story of Jesus is the story of faithfulness in trial. It's the story of the man who refuses to curse God and to deny God and to shake his fist in God's face, although he has been tried.

And the Bible says, that at the end of the book of Job (most people like to read the beginning of the book of Job), but if you look at the end of the book of Job, from the last chapter of Job, the Bible is quite amazing.

Because Job answers the Lord in Job 42, verse two. He says, "I know that you can do everything God, no purpose is hidden from you."

And the Bible goes on to say, verse 12:

"Now the Lord blessed the latter days of Job more than his beginning, for he had 14,000 sheep, 6,000 camels, 1,000 yoke of oxen. He had seven sons and three daughters." 

And the Bible goes on and it says that at the end of Job's life, he had satisfaction, joy and happiness and far more. Did Job suffer? Yes. Was he faithful in that suffering? Yes. But he came through that suffering far better off. And Shawn, you know, there may be somebody here today that is suffering, maybe somebody here today, you are going through real trials, real difficulty in your life. Like Job, you say of God, "Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him."

And you hang on in faith and you hang on in trust, and you watch what happens in your life. God will bless it dramatically.

SHAWN: I've got another question for you. It comes out of Job's experience. Job was a righteous man. And I have read other passages in the book of Psalms. The psalmist says at one point (I think it's in Psalm 73) he says, "Why is it the wicked prosper? Why do the wicked do well and I'm the one suffering?"

Now, why is life unfair?

MARK: Well, I think at times life is unfair. But wait a minute, there is another way to look at that. Maybe, God at times allows wicked people to prosper so that they would see their blessings would come from Him and turn to Him even in their prosperity.

SHAWN: Now that is an amazing thought.

MARK: Yeah, so you see, maybe the prosperity that some of the wicked receive is certainly not the result of their evil deeds and their cheating ways, at times.

But maybe, a God of love is even trying in the good times of the wicked's life to show that He has lavished them with His love and is trying to get them to turn to Him.

But maybe if that doesn't work, as the song says, "Into every life some rain shall fall." And maybe the wicked who seem to be prosperous today, if they don't turn to God, with the gentle overtures of His love and prosperity, maybe a son dies of cancer. Not caused by God, but allowed by God.

Maybe a divorce takes over and a marriage breaks up. Not caused by God, but allowed as the natural result of their choices by God. And maybe that wicked person or unsaved person who seems so on top of the world today, maybe they are crushed and bruised tomorrow and they turn to God.

On the other hand, maybe some of us who seem to be Christians and are Christians, maybe God is calling us to deepen our Christian experience. Maybe the Bible says (in the book of Romans), no chastening of the Lord at the present time seems joyous, but after, it brings forth its fruit. So there are times when God does chasten us by allowing us to go through trial to lead us to turn to Him.

SHAWN: You know, it reminds me, I had surgery done on both my legs as a boy. It was exceptionally painful. But once the pain subsided, it enabled me to walk and to have a normal life. Sometimes it's surgery, isn't it? Now another thing some people point out is, "Listen, it's pretty easy for God to sit on the sidelines. He's up in heaven, everything is happy there and we're down here suffering and He's not here."

MARK: I visited some years ago, Dachau, one of the concentration camps of Nazi Germany. And I walked through the area where the ovens were. And to sense that people were gassed in the gas chambers and put in those ovens and burned with the smoke going up day after day after day, as I was walking through the cells, I was very quiet, it was a very meditative moment and all around in my head there was going this thought, God where were you? Where in the world were you in Dachau? And I walked into a cell and etched into the wall by some lonely prisoner were these words, "God was here."

SHAWN: Amazing.

MARK: God was here. And I began to think about that, and I thought, you know what, this is where God was. Every time there is suffering, God is there. Every time there is sorrow, God is there. The difference between a saved person and an unsaved person in suffering is, the saved person may suffer, the unsaved person may suffer, but the saved person has the absolute confidence, because they have made a conscious choice to have God by their side, that He hasn't left them in suffering. God is there. Where is God in suffering? The same place that He was when His Son died. He was there to support and to encourage.

I remember reading a poem once that had a great impact on my life. It talked about a man walking down the beach. Do you know that one?

SHAWN: Oh yeah, sure, I do.

MARK: You know, he looks back over the end of his life and he says, "God, you know, I'm a little perplexed. On the sands of time, there are always two sets of footsteps, mine and yours. God I went down into some valleys and there were two sets of footsteps, mine and yours. I went up on mountains, there were two sets of footsteps on the sands of life, mine and yours. But God, there was a particularly deep valley, it was the greatest problem of my life. My life was crushed and broken. There was only one set of footsteps. God, you left me at that time, where were you?" And in heaven, as the story goes, God looks at him and says, "Let me tell you something. Did you look at those footsteps carefully? Did you look at those footprints more closely? They are deeper, because during that period of time, I was not walking by your side, I was carrying you."

SHAWN: Amazing.

MARK: Exactly. Where is He in suffering? His arms are reached out to us. He is carrying us on His shoulders.

SHAWN: What do we have to look forward to? What do we cling to as we face life's dark moments?

MARK: If one is an unbeliever, they wrestle with that question. But believers look beyond the present pain. Believers take the long view. I have counseled numerous people dying in hospitals with cancer.

I have talked to hundreds of people in the former Soviet Union whose husbands or wives were killed by the oppressive communist regime, or because of their religious beliefs, are in prison. I have talked to people in Rwanda who lost their loved ones to the genocide.

And Shawn, these Christians have an optimistic buoyant spirit. Because they believe that there is a new heaven and a new earth. They believe that Jesus will come again. They believe the words of First Thessalonians, chapter four, verses 16 and 17 that say (1 Thessalonians 4:16, 17):

 "The Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and the trump of God and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them to meet the Lord in the air."

The great hope is that Jesus Christ is coming. That all of the sorrow, all of the suffering and all of the death will be over.

SHAWN: Mark, we have run out of time, but thank you so much.

You know, sometimes when the question of suffering is raised, some skeptics almost seem to think they have caught the Christian church by surprise with the discovery that our world is not a perfect place.

But even a cursory glance through the Bible reveals a people who are well acquainted with suffering. Far from pretending that suffering doesn't exist, the Bible addresses it with an honesty that is reassuring.

And the promise of God is this, found in Nahum one, verse 9 (Nahum 1:9 KJV):

"What do you imagine against the Lord? He will make an utter end. Affliction shall not rise up the second time."

God has a concrete plan to secure the eternal happiness of the universe. And right in the middle of that plan, we find the cross of Christ, a startling reminder that God has not chosen to distance Himself from our troubles.

Speaking of Jesus hundreds of years in advance, the prophet Isaiah said in Isaiah 53:3 KJV:

"He is despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief."

The Bible says Jesus was a Man of sorrows, and that means there is no suffering Jesus doesn't understand. Do you suffer with loneliness, cut off from your loved ones? Jesus' own family mocked and misunderstood Him.

Do you lay awake at night with anguish of the mind? So did Jesus. In fact, in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus wrestled against the weight of our sins to the point where the blood began to ooze through His skin.

Do you suffer from a sense of hopelessness and abandonment? On the cross, Jesus cried out, "My God, My God, why have you forsaken Me?"

In Jesus, God Himself experienced every facet of human suffering. He didn't disappear to some distant corner of the universe when the trouble started. He stood at the grave of His friend and wept. He endured unbelievable physical agony and suffered mental anguish. He knew, firsthand, the pain of rejection.

And so whatever it is, today, that you suffer with, He knows about it.

Maybe you have been carrying your struggles all by yourself, and it's getting just a little hard to take. The Bible promises that you can take your problems, your heartache, your disappointment, and bring them straight to heaven's sanctuary. And there you will find a God who carries scars of His own, because He wanted you so desperately in His kingdom.

Pastor Mark, I know there is someone watching today who has suffered disappointment. They are struggling, their life seems dark and they are looking for some hope. I think we should probably pray for that person.

MARK: Let's do that, Shawn, right now.

PRAYER:
Father, there is somebody watching this telecast today, who is hurting. There may be a single mom out there whose husband has died of cancer or a car wreck. There may be somebody watching who has lost a son, a daughter in the horrors and tragedies of war. There may be somebody watching who is lying on a bed of cancer, dying. There may be somebody watching in prison who in their heart knows they are unjustly condemned. Father, today, I pray for that man that woman, that boy, that girl. We live in a world of unfairness, but help us through our tears, and our pain, and our suffering to see Jesus, standing by our side with His arms around us, giving us hope and courage. We thank you so much that you are there in the midst of our trials, and we thank you that we can turn to you in every emergency with the confidence that you'll never let us down. In Christ's name, amen.

h2.Scriptures Quoted in Show #1024
GOOD WORLD, BAD WORLD, WHY?

"And He said to them, 'I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven."'
—Luke 10:18 NKJV

"And war broke out in heaven: Michael and his angels fought with the dragon; and the dragon and his angels fought, but they did not prevail, nor was a place found for them in heaven any longer. So the great dragon was cast out, that serpent of old, called the Devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world; he was cast to the earth, and his angels were cast out with him."
—Revelation 12:7-9 NKJV

"How you are fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How you are cut down to the ground, You who weakened the nations! For you have said in your heart: 'I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; I will also sit on the mount of the congregation on the farthest sides of the north; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the Most High."'
—Isaiah 14:12-14 NKJV

"Thus says the Lord GOD: 'You were the seal of perfection, Full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. You were in Eden, the garden of God; Every precious stone was your covering?The workmanship of your timbrels and pipes was prepared for you on the day you were created. You were the anointed cherub who covers; I established you; You were on the holy mountain of God."'
—Ezekiel 28:12-14 NKJV

"Your heart was lifted up because of your beauty; you corrupted your wisdom for the sake of your splendor; I cast you to the ground, I laid you before kings, that they might gaze at you."
—Ezekiel 28:17 NKJV

"I know that You can do everything, and that no purpose of Yours can be withheld from You."
—Job 42:2 NKJV

"Now the Lord blessed the latter days of Job more than his beginning; for he had fourteen thousand sheep, six thousand camels, one thousand yoke of oxen, and one thousand female donkeys."
—Job 42:12 NKJV

"For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord."
—1 Thessalonians 4:16-17 NKJV

"What do you imagine against the Lord? He will make an utter end. Affliction shall not rise up the second time."
—Nahum 1:9 KJV

"He is despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief."
—Isaiah 53:3 KJV

Scriptures Used in “Good God, Bad World, Why?”