Evil a Problem?

The so called "problem of evil" and the reality of human suffering has long been used by some as proof that God does not exists; or if He does exist He is either not good or not all powerful. But atheists and agnostics are not the only ones who struggle with evil and suffering, many Christians seem to believe that their own suffering is a sign of God's displeasure with them or His inability or unwillingness to help them. In his little book A Primer on Apologetics John Gerstner attacks these charges head on and provides wise counsel for those dealing with evil and suffering. He begins by saying:

"So evil is bad and against God's nature but its existing must be good for the purpose God has. So the evil is bad but not the good God brings out of it. He could not bring good out of evil without evil's existing. So it is good that evil exists though evil as existing is bad. This is the divine method, not divine madness. God has seeming pleasure with evil but actual displeasure with evil. His pleasure is only in what comes out of it and therefore ultimately has pleasure in evil's existing. So God has no pleasure in evil; but more properly and fully stated, God has pleasure in evil-existing-for-the-good-God-would-bring-out-of-it"

He is saying that what we often deem as "evil" is on the one hand bad because it violates God's law and nature but that its existence is good since God uses evil to bring about good. He then argues that since evil is part of God's plan for good that evil does not actually exist. He says:

"This is what I mean by saying that evil does not, cannot, exist. It is all a seeming. Whatever God brings to pass is good. Everything that happens God brings to pass. Or, whatever happens is God's ordaining. Nothing not of God's ordaining ever has, ever does, or ever shall come to pass. In all the vast expanse of time and space there is no time, no space, for evil to be."

That is to say that what we experience as "evil" is not evil at all since God ordained it to bring about good in us and for us; this is what he means when he says that "It is all seeming." The word seeming is the key; we experience it as evil but it is good because God ordained it to bring about some good. Having address the problem of evil (which he calls "The non-problem of evil") he goes on to practically address how this relates to human suffering.

"What of suffering? I ask, What of suffering? You expostulate: That is certainly evil, isn't it? I reply: O course not. It is good, perfectly good, the best, the very best. There would be evil only if there were no evil in this universe of ours. We know there is no evil in suffering because God ordains it (we know this because it happens)...If we do concur in suffering, however, we cannot suffer. Those who approve of suffering, because God approves of suffering, are moral persons and moral persons are free from suffering, of from the pain of 'pain.' They know that such 'pain' is good and are glad to have it. Pain is joyful only for those who deserve it ans that makes the righteous rejoice."

He concludes this discussion with these words. As you walk through this world with Christ, contemplate these words and measure yourself in order to see how you handle suffering and evil.

"Who is the fool? The one who seeks relief but is happy even when he doesn't find it, of the one who seeks relief but is miserable when he doesn't find it?...You hang in there because you'll not give up your misery easily. You say that I must be a masochist who enjoys suffering when it is you who are a hypochondriac. I enjoy not suffering. I have no 'pain' that I cannot spare. Is that so bad? The masochist is miserable, he admits, but will not let his misery go. I gladly let my misery go. I don't even let it stay because I know that all that comes comes from God and is good for me. There is not evil coming the moral man's way. He knows it. There isn't any evil coming the immoral man's way, but he doesn't know it, or at least admit it."

To God be the Glory

Seven Words

At our Good Friday service tonight I will preach on the final words spoken by Christ before his death. Here are a few things that stand out to me from these seven sayings:

“Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.” Luke 23:34 – this is the essence of why Jesus came. Jesus did not come to establish an earthly kingdom but to offer forgiveness of sin.

“Truly I say to you, today you shall be with Me in Paradise” Luke 23:43 – because we have been forgiven in Christ we look forward to the day when we will see Him face to face in glory. We have an inheritance that is sure.

“Dear woman, here is your Son.” John 19:26 – at first glance this is one of the most interesting statements. Jesus is bearing the wrath of God for the sin of the world and yet He takes the time to make sure that His mother is cared for. When Christ died for our sins He did not just provide for our future, He provided for our present as well. John was to take care of Mary and Jesus sent His Spirit so that we would not be left alone as orphans.

“My God, My God, why have you forsaken Me? Mark 15:34 – here we witness Jesus bearing the crushing weight of God’s wrath on sin. The one who lived in eternal communion with the Father is now being forsaken so that sinners could be forgiven.

“I am thirsty.” John 19:28 – throughout the gospels Jesus spoke of the cup that He must drink. The cup was the cup of God’s wrath and it left Him thirsty. Jesus drank deeply from that cup in order that we might drink of the living water that becomes a well springing up to eternal life.

“It is finished.” John 19:30 – simple and yet profound. All that needed to be done to save God’s people from sin has been done. No other sacrifice is necessary and no work is left to be done—it is finished!

“Father, into Your hands I commit My Spirit.” Luke 23:46 – Jesus entrusted Himself to the Father and because of His death we have no fear of condemnation and we too can trust fully in God the Father who has saved us by grace.

Thanks be to God

In 1 Samuel 15 the newly anointed king Saul is given a difficult command. Here is the command from verses 2 and 3:

“Thus says the Lord of hosts, ‘I will punish Amalek for what he did to Israel, how he set himself against him on the way while he was coming from Egypt. Now go and strike Amalek and utterly destroy all that he has, and do not spare him; but put to death both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.’”

The text makes it clear that Saul did not obey the command of God, verses 8 and 9 reveal that:

“He captured Agag the king of the Amalekites alive, and utterly destroyed all the people with the edge of the sword. But Saul and the people spared Agag and the best of the sheep, the oxen, the fatlings, the lambs, and all that was good, and were not willing to destroy them utterly; but everything despised and worthless, that they utterly destroyed.”

In response to Saul’s actions God tells the prophet Samuel what Saul did and He sends Samuel to Saul to confront him with his disobedience. Saul does two things in response to Samuel’s rebuke. First Saul redefines obedience. In verse 15 he tells Samuel:

“They have brought them (the livestock) from the Amalekites, for the people spared the best of the sheep and oxen, to sacrifice to the Lord your God; but the rest we have utterly destroyed.”

He essentially tells Samuel that he had devised a better plan, a means of greater obedience, a plan in which the spoil of victory would be used to honor God. Saul is certainly pleased with his efforts and believes that God would be pleased as well. And thus with obedience redefined Saul then claims to have perfectly obeyed. In verses 13 Samuel meets Saul and Saul boldly and arrogantly declares:

“Blessed are you of the Lord! I have carried out the command of the Lord.”

Samuel answered Saul’s arrogance with sobering words. In verse 22 Samuel says:

“Has the Lord as much delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold to obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed than the fat of rams.”

God was not pleased and Saul had not obeyed. I believe there much that we can learn from this passage.

1. We have been given a difficult command. Two passages of Scripture perfectly summarize this command:

“…but like the Holy One who called you, be holy yourselves also in all your behavior; because it is written, ‘You shall be holy, for I am Holy.’” 1 Peter 1:15, 16

“Teacher what is the great commandment in the Law? And He said to him, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all you heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and foremost commandment. The second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Matthew 22:36-39

God commands that we be perfect. God cannot turn a blind eye to our sin or settle for anything short of absolute perfection. As difficult as it was, Saul’s command seems simple by comparison.

2. We cannot obey God’s commands; we cannot be perfect. Scripture and experience clearly demonstrate this to be true.

3. It is tempting and easy to redefine obedience, the Pharisees are classic examples of this, and on that basis convince ourselves that we have in fact obeyed God. Man is very good at establishing a standard that he is able to keep and equating obedience to that standard with obedience to God. Self-justification is a deadly foe because it cannot be achieved but allows a man to convince himself that all is well.

4. We must embrace the fact that all of our best efforts fall woefully short of the mark. Romans 3 makes this point forcefully and repeatedly:

“There is none righteous, not even one; there is none who understands, there is none who seeks for God; all have turned aside, together they have become useless; there is none who does good, there is not even one.”

5. We have one, Jesus Christ, who has both perfectly obeyed and made a perfect sacrifice for sin. The good news of the gospel is that His obedience has been credited to us and His sacrifice has taken away our sin. Here are just a few of the promises of Scripture to those who have faith in Christ:

“He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” 2 Corinthians 5:21

“I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me. I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness comes through the Law, then Christ died needlessly.” Galatians 2:20-21

“Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death. For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, so that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.” Romans 8:1-4

God has commanded that we be holy and in Christ He has made us holy. The very thing He commands He provides. This holiness is not according to our effort or good deeds; it is entirely due to the grace and mercy of God in Christ Jesus. Let the words of Philippians 3:8-10 be our prayer:

“More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ, and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which come from God on the basis of faith, that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death…”

Providential Meeting

On Thursday I was in Chicago for a conference. At the end of the day I started to walk the 2 ½ miles back to my hotel. It was cold that day and very windy so on the spur of the moment I decided to take a cab. I got into the cab and the driver asked me, with a thick accent, what was going on (there were 5,000 at the conference and they were pouring out of the convention center). I explained that it was a gathering of pastors from throughout the country and that I was a pastor in San Antonio, TX. He responded by saying; I am Kalunga, I am Zulu, I practice voodoo. He then went on to explain that he worshipped the devil out of fear and that he felt that the devil was after him. He said that sometimes he could not sleep because he felt like the devil was choking him. I asked him if he had ever heard of Jesus. His response surprised me; he said no, who is he?

I began by telling him that the fear he felt was actually the guilt of sin and that it was not the devil but God’s wrath that he needed to fear. He immediately told me of all he had to do in order to keep the devil from harming him; he showed me cuts on his arms and his bag full of trinkets that he used to try and appease the devil. I then had the privilege of telling him about the Jesus he did not know. I told him that Jesus took the penalty for sin upon Himself and that He paid the debt completely. I told Him that Jesus had the power to free Him from the power and guilt of sin. He then asked how much it cost and how much he would have to pay. He explained that in voodoo you had to repeatedly pay in order to be set free. He was shocked when I told Him that the forgiveness offered by Christ is free and that Jesus paid the debt in full and that there was nothing more to be done.

He then wanted to know where he could go to learn more about Jesus. I told him about a couple of churches that I knew of in Chicago and encouraged him to go there. His response saddened me. He said that he was afraid that he could not go to church because he did not have nice clothes and that they would not accept him because he had practiced voodoo. It was sad because he hadn’t heard of Jesus but knew enough to know that the church might not welcome him. I assured him that he could go, that he did not need nice clothes and that he would be welcomed (I pray that if he goes that I will have told him the truth). As we approached the hotel he told me that he had never heard anything like this before and that his heart was pounding in his chest. As I prepare for Lord’s Day tomorrow I am thinking about Kalunga. I am hoping that tomorrow he will find himself in a church and that he will hear more about Jesus.

Pray for Kalunga, he is Zulu, he practices voodoo. Pray that God will pour out His grace and that Kalunga will turn from voodoo and find salvation in our great God and Savior Jesus Christ.

Faith

"In this Christian brotherhood no man possesses more than another. St. Peter and St. Paul have no more than Mary Magdalene or you or I. To sum up: Taking them all together, they are brothers, and there is no difference between the persons. Mary, the Mother of the Lord, and John the Baptist, and the thief on the cross, they all possess the selfsame good which you and I possess, and all who are baptised and do the Father’s Will. And what have all the saints? They have comfort and help promised them through Christ in every kind of need, against sin, death, and the devil. And I have the same, and you, and all believers have.

But this also is true, that you and I do not believe it so firmly as John the Baptist and St. Paul; and yet it is the one and only treasure. It is the same as when two men hold a glass of wine, one with a trembling, the other with a steady hand. Or when two men hold a bag of money, one in a weak, the other in a strong hand. Whether the hand be strong, or weak, as God wills, it neither adds to the contents of the bag, nor takes away. In the same way there is no other difference here between the Apostles and me, than that they hold the treasure firmer. Nevertheless, I should and must know that I possess the same treasure as all holy Prophets, Apostles, and all saints have possessed."

Martin Luther