Speaker: we are talking about the problem of evil.
Um, essentially, right?
One of the biggest.
Objections to Christianity that is out there is, if God is
good, why do bad things happen?
Right?
I want you to imagine maybe that you are, instead of growing up in the US, that
you're someone maybe growing up in another part of the world, maybe like there's
a war going on right in Iran out there.
Maybe you're growing up there.
You, your family is maybe killed or your friends get killed
in, in a bombing or something.
Um, and you wonder if God exists.
Why doesn't he stop this?
Right?
If, if God is really in control of this, if God is really who the Bible says he
is, why does he do anything about this?
Why is he letting all these people die?
Right?
Why did he let my family die?
Why did he let my friends die?
Why did he let this, you know, these governments take over?
Why does he let these things happen?
That's a big question.
And we're gonna take these next two days, right?
These next three sermons to think through, how does that work?
How can God let these crazy bad things happen?
Or even things like natural disasters, right?
Why do, why does God allow those things?
Why does God not just stop them right away?
So, 'cause if we say he can, why doesn't he do it?
So that's what we're gonna be talking about.
So, um, essentially, right, the problem of evil, kind of, I was try,
I tried to show, there's actually a clip of it in, I don't know if you
guys know, Batman versus Superman.
The movie like 10 years ago, that was like a giant flop.
Um, but the bad guy likes Luther and Badman versus Superman essentially lays
out this whole problem, um, in this speech to Superman because he, he's
saying that Superman is kind of like God, and he's saying, Superman, if you're so
good, why don't you, why don't you stop all these bad things from happening?
Um.
But essentially if God is in control of everything right, then everything that
happens is 'cause he let it happen, right?
If, if God is in control of everything, then he could
stop anything from happening.
So anything that happens happens because God let it happen.
So if that's true, and, and that's what we're gonna see, that maybe that's what
the Bible says, then everything that happens is because God let it happen.
But if God is good, why would he let bad things happen?
So these god's in control, but God's good.
So if those things are both true, why do?
Why do bad things happen?
And so a lot of people will say that, well, that means that God
either must not be in control, right?
Because maybe he's good, but he can't really stop people
from doing bad things, right?
Or maybe he can't stop natural disasters, or he can't stop wars.
So then maybe God's not in control.
Or they'll say, well, maybe God's in control, but he's not good.
Because he lets all these horrible things happen so he can't be good.
So those are conclusions that people come to or people say,
well, therefore God can't exist.
Right?
This is what maybe a lot of your atheist classmates or friends will say is God
doesn't exist because if, if the God you're talking about existed, he would
stop all these bad things from happening.
If God was really in control and if he was really all good, then he
wouldn't let these bad things happen, so therefore that God can't exist.
Now that causes us a problem, right?
Because if we're gonna say the Bible's true, if we're gonna sit here and
say, well, the Bible is God's word, if we're gonna sit here and say
that, um, God is who he says he is.
We have to answer that question.
Maybe you've never thought about this before, or maybe this is something
that for you is something that is maybe preventing you from trusting Jesus.
Or maybe it's a question someone asks you and you just don't know a good answer.
That's what we're here for, right?
We're here to answer this question.
How does that all work?
Okay?
Because if we're wrong about this, then we're all believing a lie, right?
Then we're all believing in a God who's either not good,
not in control, or not real.
So, um, I hope you see how important this is.
Um, even if it's a new.
Area of, of thinking for you.
This is gonna be really, really important for you to have conversations with people.
I guarantee you you're gonna have someone who asks you this at some point, whether
it's a relative or a college professor or, or someone who's gonna ask you this.
So, um, hopefully this will set you up to trust God for
the rest of your life, right?
That's, that's my goal for, for all these sermons.
Okay.
So, um, and, and maybe this is like kind of an academic thing for you.
This is what feels like Pastor Rod told me, um, this might feel like
a conference 'cause you're learning about something that doesn't feel.
It's, it's more theoretical than real.
And so the first thing I want you to do is think about that this, realize that
this is going to hit you like at home.
'cause there's gonna be bad things that happen to you, right?
So our first point tonight is, or not tonight, whatever time of day it is, come
face to face with the problem of evil.
I want you to see that this is something that will affect you
at some point in your life.
Something bad is gonna happen to you or someone you care about.
You're gonna wonder why, right?
Why did God let that happen?
Right?
It could be something small like your dog dies, right?
Why does God let my dog die?
If he's so good, why would he let that happen?
Right?
It could be something big like one of your parents dies, right?
Why does God let that happen?
Or you have a really close relative who dies, right?
Why does this happen?
Or even just a, a little thing, right?
There's, there's so many big little in between things, right?
If, if God is good, why didn't he give me this?
Right?
Why did this person get sick, right?
Why did this person, you know, whatever, why did these big terrible things happen?
So this is gonna happen to you at some point, right?
I think a lot of us are really good at putting off problems, right?
When I was in college, um.
I got really, really good at procrastinating.
Um, 'cause especially when you, like in college I lived in a dorm room and so
we're all on this, on this like hallway and you know, I've got my friends
down there, they've got a Nando switch hooked up to a projector in their room.
And so essentially what we would do is like homework didn't start until
10:00 PM like after dinner it was like, hang out, no homework time, and.
We would just, we'd play Super Smash, we'd play Mario Party, we'd go do whatever.
If someone's like, oh yeah, hey, we're about to, you know,
we're about to play this game.
We're like, oh, sure.
I, I guess I have time for that, right?
I can do homework later.
And I got really, really good at putting off my homework.
Um, I don't want you to do that with this problem.
I don't want you to think, man, um, I can just worry about
that when I'm older, right?
Maybe you're in junior high, or maybe this is new for you.
Maybe you don't really go to church that much.
You don't take read the Bible.
Maybe you're, you're just thinking, oh, this is a, this
sounds like an adult problem.
It sounds like a big problem.
Big, you know, not, not for me, right?
I don't want you to procrastinate this because the problem is right.
With procrastinating.
My homework like I did, is eventually I had to deal with my homework, right?
I had to do it.
I couldn't just.
Forget about it and, and escape it because eventually it was gonna be there, right?
Eventually when I came back to my room, right.
Um, my homework was gonna be there and I had to do it right.
This is gonna come on your doorstep at some point, right?
You can't just keep putting this off and be like, well, I'm too young to deal
with this, or, oh, this isn't a big deal.
My parents can figure that out.
Or it's, it's okay.
That's for, you know, the people who wanna go share the gospel, that's
for them to figure out, right?
This is something that you need to figure out at some point, right?
And now is the best time for you to do it.
So, um, don't, don't put it off, right?
There's bad things that are gonna happen to you and to people you care about.
Um, like we've talked about, um.
Or someone will ask you this question, and I don't want you to be sitting
there like, uh, I don't know.
I never thought about that.
Right?
Um, I want you to be ready 'cause this, if you have a good answer to
this question that could help someone trust Jesus for the first time, right?
That could help someone become a Christian, is if, if someone asks you,
is this why they're not a Christian?
They say, I, I just don't understand how God could let all
these bad things happen, right?
Uh, I, I like Jesus, I like what he says, but um, I just don't
understand why he let my mom die.
What do you say?
Right?
You, you, I had a friend in high school who told me that, what do you say, right?
We were, we were walking from math class to history class, and I was
like, oh, you ever go to church?
And he's like, yeah, I just don't really like church.
And I was like, oh, why not?
He's like, well, um, I just had really bad experiences and whatever.
And, and I asked, oh, what was that like?
He's like, well, you know, they said that, that God is in control of everything.
And he had a really hard situation at home and he was like, I just
don't see how God can be in control of everything and let this happen.
And I'm 17 years old.
In my six minute passing period from math class to history class
and what do you say, right?
That could be you.
Next week, someone could ask you that.
What do you do?
Right?
That's why we're here.
Okay.
Um, but also, um, I don't wanna just approach this
problem as something out there.
Um, so if you've got your Bible, let's go to Luke chapter 13.
Okay.
Luke chapter 13.
Because part of this is outward facing, right?
There's, there's bad things that happen out there in the world, right?
They're, they're on the news or there's things that happen in your
life, right, that are hard, that are bad, that don't make sense.
Um, but part of the problem of evil has to do with you and me.
So, Luke 13, we're gonna start in verse one, okay?
And we're just gonna read a few verses together and, and talk about 'em.
So Jesus is talking with some, some people, and there was this really
bad thing that happened, right?
This was the, this was on the news at the time.
So verse one, there were some, there were some present at that very time.
So Jesus talking to them, uh, and they told him about the glees whose blood
Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices.
So essentially what happened is Pilate right, the governor of this area had.
Killed some people and he wanted to offend the Jews.
He wanted to make the Jews really angry and really sad, and so on the altar.
He, he killed people there.
And that would be really, really like bad for the altar, right?
Because you're not supposed to put, like, we've been, we've been reading
in our daily Bible reading, right?
You're not supposed to put human blood with anything, right?
You're not supposed to do do anything with that.
So he, he kills these people and he.
Makes a really horrible scene out of it, and she's answered them.
He says, do you think verse two, that these Galileans were worse
sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered in this way?
So he says, well, do you think that happened to them?
'cause they're really bad people and you're not as bad of a person.
He says, no, I tell you, unless you repent, you will all likewise.
Perish, and we'll get more on that later.
Verse eight, he brings up another, or verse four, he brings up another tragedy
here in verse four, or those 18 on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them.
So there was this tower, it fell down and killed a bunch of people, right?
Something like that happens pretty often.
Something, you know, a plane crash, right?
A bunch of people die.
He says, okay, well why did that happen?
Is it because those people were worse offenders than all the other
people who lived in Jerusalem?
So when bad things happen to people, is it because they're
really bad and they deserved it?
He says, no, but I tell you, unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.
What Jesus is saying here is bad things don't happen only to bad people.
What he's saying is that everyone's a bad person if you want God to get rid of
all the bad things in the world, right?
That's a lot.
A lot of people say, they say, I, I don't believe in God.
'cause he lets all these bad things happen.
Right?
Well.
Good question to ask someone is, well, God, or sorry, would you want God
to stop all the bad things, right?
I, I was talking to someone, um, a couple years ago, one of my coworkers,
we were talking about this and I, and I said, well, would you want God to
stop all the bad things from happening?
And they were like, yeah, that would be great.
And so then we talked about it.
I was like, well, how much of the bad things would you want God to stop?
Would you want him to stop all the murder?
And they're like, yeah.
I was like, yeah, me too.
Would you want God to stop all the lying?
They were like, yes, but I could tell they were like not sure.
Because why?
If God takes out all the liars in the world, who's left?
No one.
There's zero people left in the world.
If God gets rid of all the lying in the world, there's gonna be
zero people left on the planet.
Right?
So if you want God to stop all the bad things from happening, right?
If maybe that's your objection to why you don't trust God.
Or maybe that's really hard for you to think about.
How does God let all these bad things happen?
If God was going to stop all the bad things in the world from happening,
you and I wouldn't be here.
Right?
We'd be gone.
'cause God would have to stop us too.
Right?
What about all the bad thoughts in the world?
All the selfish thoughts?
If you want God to stop those, well that means you and I we're done, right?
So part of the problem of evil.
Is you me, part of the problem of why this world is so messed up is, is me and you.
And so don't just come face to face with, oh yeah, the world's messed
up, and we have to figure out if God's in control and if he's good.
We also have to figure out, okay, if we want God to stop all the bad things in
the world, I'm part of the problem, right?
It's not just all the bad stuff on the news that God needs to deal with.
If I want God to stop evil, he has to do something about my evil, right?
We're all part of the problem of evil now.
So what do we do right?
What do we, how do we figure that out then?
Okay.
So we know that God is, we think that God's in control.
We think that God's good.
Um, but also we realize that hey, if, if we really want God to do
something, all the bad things, he's gonna have to do something about me.
He's gonna have to do something about, about my sin.
'cause I'm part of the problem.
I contribute to the bad things that are happening.
In the world.
So what we're gonna do now is we're gonna look at some bad
solutions to the problem of evil.
Okay?
So what we're gonna look, uh, uh, we're gonna look at three different ways.
Some people try to resolve this problem.
If God is good, why do bad things happen?
There's three bad ways that are very common, um, that you might hear.
So I'll give you the second point and then we'll talk through those three ways.
Okay?
So 0.2
is don't compromise on who God says he is.
Don't compromise on who God says he is.
Compromise, right?
Compromise.
That means like you meet halfway, right?
Like um, your sibling, you know, says, well, I wanna play on the Xbox right now.
And you say, well, I'm playing right now.
Right?
And you compromise and say, well how about I'll let you play in 30 minutes?
That's a compromise.
'cause if it was up to you, you would keep playing.
If it was up to them, they would beat you up and.
Take control of the Xbox, right?
So you compromise and you meet in the middle, right?
You say, okay, you know what?
I'll stop soon.
That way you can play your game too.
Or you compromise.
Let's say you want to play, you know, um, M Lll v the show on the
Xbox, and they wanna play, um, I don't know, Mar Mario Kart, right?
And you compromise and say, well, instead let's just play.
Right, whatever.
Fifa.
I don't know.
Baseball.
Mario baseball.
That's a great compromise.
That is a wonderful compromise, right?
If someone wants to play Mario Kart, you wanna play Animal V Show?
Let's play Mario Baseball so that you can still have your Mario and I
can still have my baseball, right?
That's compromise.
Meet in the middle.
Great job, Josh.
That was perfect.
So essentially what some people do when they try to figure out
the problem of evil, right?
When they try to figure out if God is good, why do bad things happen?
If God is in control, why do bad things happen happen?
They compromise.
What they do is they meet halfway.
They say, well, maybe God isn't all of those things, right?
So all of these solutions sharing something about God, all these bad
solutions that I'm gonna show you, okay?
So the first bad solution, which is probably the most obviously bad,
is that God doesn't exist, right?
This is the bad solution.
Um, well if God is really good.
God is in control, but there's bad things happening.
That means that God must not exist, right?
Bad solution.
Hopefully I don't have to explain why this is a bad solution, but, um, here's
something that might be helpful for you.
Okay, so when you're thinking about this,
the existence of evil actually proves that God exists.
Now, maybe that's kind of crazy for you to think about.
A lot of people use evil as a reason to say God doesn't exist.
You can actually say.
If you think evil exists, it's because God actually does exist.
Now here, let me show you why.
Okay?
So, um, if we were just, you know, molecules bouncing around, right?
A bunch of chemical reactions and if your emotions were just the product
of your hormones and chemicals, right, and not, there's no depth to it, right?
If you're just stuff that met other stuff and.
Grew into more complicated stuff, right?
Then why do you care about evil?
You're just stuff, right?
Maria, our dog, right?
Doesn't care about evil.
Maria just wants food and snuggles, right?
That's all Maria really wants.
Maria doesn't, doesn't know good from evil, right?
Because so.
The fact that we have a sense of good and evil shows, right?
'cause there's no good reason that we have a, a sense of good and evil
unless we got that from God, right?
The fact that you're bothered by evil, the fact that it bothers you
when someone lies to you, right?
That means that something told you that lying was wrong.
Something, something told you that lying was wrong.
Someone told you that when someone, someone steals something from you.
The reason you feel something's wrong with that is because of God, because there's
these morals that God has put into people.
And so the fact that people complain about bad things happening
actually shows that God exists.
If, if you're saying that, well, God can't exist 'cause all these bad
things happen, well, the only reason you would recognize those things
as bad is because of God, right?
If you're just the product of evolution.
You would say, if someone steals from you, you would say,
well, survival is the fittest.
They're just better evolved to handle life than I am.
Right?
Or you would even maybe remember in our our Luke 13 passage, oh,
those people must have deserved it.
They were worse, right?
They were worse people.
They were worse at surviving, so that's why they died, right?
They made bad evolutionary choices.
That's why they died.
So the fact that evil bothers people means that God must exist.
Because people to be bothered by evil means that there's some
kind of sense of good and evil, and that can only come from God.
That can't just come from a bunch of people making up good and evil, because
then how does everyone have the same standard of good and evil, right?
Everyone inherently knows on the inside when something's good and when something's
not right, you feel guilty about things.
Why do you feel guilty about something you shouldn't unless God made you that way?
So the existence of good and evil.
Um.
Every culture thinks good and evil exist.
There's no culture that says, well, everything's the same.
So evil actually proves the existence of God.
It doesn't rule out God's existence.
Okay?
So if someone's ever talking to you, right, and, and you're thinking,
oh, well, I don't know what to say, you could start with, well, how
do you know what good and evil is?
Where do you get that from?
That comes from God, right?
So that's the first bad solution is God doesn't exist.
Second bad solution here.
God isn't sovereign.
That just means in control.
If, if that makes more sense, you would just write, God isn't in control.
Um, sovereign's just the fancy word, so you can impress your parents.
I learned something at retreat.
Uh, God isn't sovereign, so another bad solution to God isn't in control Now.
Um,
we start right with what the Bible says.
So the Bible says Psalm 1 15, 3, our God is in the heavens.
He does whatever he wants.
So that means God is sovereign.
He, he has the right to do anything he wants.
So the, the Bible is pretty clear.
There's other passages I could have gone to.
This was just the shortest and simplest, um, that God does whatever he wants.
God has the right to do anything.
God is in control of anything.
God could, if he wanted to stop something, he would.
He could do that.
Um, if he lets something happen, it's 'cause he did it.
It's not because he's like, oh, I didn't know that was gonna happen.
Right.
So
some people, um, this isn't super common, at least in the church, but maybe
people you talk to might think that good and evil are like, um, equal powers.
Right?
Maybe like, like God and Satan are like, kind of like, like every movie, right?
There's, there's the good guys and the bad guys.
Right.
Um, that they're on equal terms, right?
History is not God versus Satan.
I wonder who's gonna win, right?
History is God's gonna win and he's letting Satan do what he do.
Satan things, so they're not on equal terms.
So God and Satan are not equals in the sense of, oh, Satan does something.
Or, or, you know, evil happens and then God's like, oh, I gotta fix that.
Okay, let me fight back.
Right?
This isn't, you know, Avengers or Star Wars or whatever, where God is responding
to evil and, and fighting against evil.
And, and we're gonna see who wins, right?
God.
And good and evil are, are not equals in the sense of God and evil are
not in this like two-way battle.
Right.
Um,
also, um, evil in that scenario has always existed, right?
If you're saying, well, history is a story of good versus evil,
um, you would be saying that evil has always existed, right?
And that's not true.
We know that from the Bible, right?
Um, 'cause in the beginning was God, there wasn't evil.
There was just good.
So evil hasn't existed forever.
This isn't, you know, something like, well, some people are
good, some people are bad.
And that's always been that way.
It's like, well actually, remember we've been talking about this in Romans, right?
People started out in the garden as perfect and then evil came into the world.
So evil is like a alien coming into the world.
Evil didn't start out in the world.
Um, so yeah, evil isn't.
Eternal evil hasn't been around forever.
Um, you guys know the difference between like in geometry, uh, a line
and array and a line segment, right?
Um, like a line has the arrows on both ends.
Array has the dot on one end and the arrow on the other end.
And then the line segment has two dots on the ends, right?
You're like, please, this is like the worst Bible and math.
This is terrible.
Um, so evil.
So, so God is a line set is a line, right?
God has arrows on both ends.
God has always existed and will always exist, right?
So good has always existed and will always exist.
Um, you and I we're array, right?
We have a starting point, but we're all gonna exist forever.
Some of you are gonna be in heaven and some of you are not, right?
But you're gonna exist forever.
So we're raised.
Evil is a line segment.
Evil has a starting point and an ending point, which we'll talk about tomorrow.
We'll talk about the, the second dot on the line segment.
So evil is not a line segment or a, a backward ray if it, if you will, right?
Um, evil has a starting point and an ending point, so God doesn't.
Have like an eternal battle with evil.
A lot of religions teach that, right?
Um, like Egyptian mythology, right?
There's this eternal battle between good and evil.
That's not what we teach, that's not what the Bible says.
So anyway, um, that's one thing.
Another one part of God's sovereignty would be this, the fancy word
is called, um, open theism.
You probably don't care what that is.
Essentially, this is that God doesn't know what's gonna happen.
So God just kind of does things and he sees what happens.
So like for example, it would be like this, God made Adam and Eve
and then Adam sinned, and then God was like, oh no, what do I do?
Let me fix that.
Okay, let's do the gospel.
Let's, let's, let's fix that.
Let's send Jesus into the world and take away sin, right?
Um, that's not true, right?
God wasn't like, oh man, ate the fruit.
What do we do?
Okay, father, son, spirit, let's talk about it.
Let's figure out what to do.
Right?
If they didn't have a huddle after Genesis three and be like, all
right, you know what we're gonna do, we're gonna do the gospel.
That's not how this works.
So, um, you can't say that God doesn't know what's gonna happen.
Some people, some Christians will say this, um, yeah, I don't, you might not
ever hear that, but some Christians do.
Some Christians say that, um, God is, he doesn't know what's gonna happen.
He doesn't know.
Things.
And so he just acts and then you and I do things and, and there's
consequences to actions, and then we figure it out and God figures it out.
Right?
That's not true.
God is in control.
God knows the end from the beginning, right?
That, um, God knows how history is gonna end.
God knew in Genesis one, that Genesis three was gonna happen, right?
God knew Adam was gonna eat the fruit.
God knew that he would have to send Jesus to die on the cross.
Maybe you're asking, how do you know that?
Well, you think about Ephesians one, right?
God predestined people to be saved.
So if God planned to save people, then he had to know that people
were gonna need to be saved, right?
Like if I knew right, that we were gonna do sermons here,
so I planned to preach them.
Right.
Um.
Or if you knew there was gonna be a pool, you planned and
brought swim trunks, right?
Hopefully, um, you knew it.
So you planned, right?
That's, you predestined it, right?
You said, I'm gonna swim, so I'm gonna bring swim trunks.
Right.
God knew he was gonna save people, so that means that it's not like, oh, we
gotta figure it out and save people.
He knew it.
So that's another part of this.
And then another thing, and this is probably, um.
Again, I just, for this last part, I wanna stress that there are many
good Christians who believe this.
Um, so I, what I'm saying is not like you're either a Christian or you're not,
but I think, and this a bad solution to the problem of evil, is saying that people
have free will to do whatever they want.
Um, there's a very popular guy who, um, I heard him speak and he said his
whole thing was called If God, why Evil?
And his answer was, 'cause people can do whatever they want because
if God lets you do whatever you want, he has to let you sin.
So the whole basis for his, his thinking was that, well, you can
choose whatever you wanna do and that's why God has to allow evil
to let you do whatever you want.
Now, again, you can still be a Christian and believe that
this guy is a great Christian.
He teaches the gospel, right?
He believes the Bible.
Um.
And the problem with that is that means God's reacting
to what you and I do, right?
Um, and we don't think that's true.
God's not reacting to, to bad things that happen.
God knew those bad things were gonna happen and we'll
talk about that more tomorrow.
Uh, or sorry, later today we'll talk about that more.
But God, the other way to that, so we talked about how it's not that
God doesn't know it's gonna happen.
The other solution is that God is like Dr.
Strange and he knows all the possible outcomes.
And then he says, okay, well here's the best one.
Right?
And he's kind of like pulling all the strings to make it work.
Um, again, if God declares the end from the beginning, that's
not really how that works, right?
Dr.
Strange didn't say, here's how we're gonna beat Thanos guys.
He said, well, I saw, you know, however many possibilities there were.
And he said, well, there's one that'll work.
We just gotta figure it out.
Right?
That's not how history works with God.
God's not like, okay, here's the one way this, this is gonna work.
God said, no, this is what we're doing.
Right?
God isn't looking at a bunch of different histories and saying,
okay, Well's do that one.
So, um, that might be a little bit over your head, right?
But the point is, all of these things say something about God, right?
When we say, well, God just doesn't know what's gonna happen.
That means that we're saying that God isn't all knowing, right?
We're we're compromising on who God says he is.
We're saying, well, yeah, I know that evil's a big
problem, so let's meet halfway.
Instead of saying that God knows everything and evil exists,
I have these two problems.
Let's compromise and say God doesn't know everything.
Right.
See what we just did there?
We just played Mario Baseball, right?
Um, or instead of saying, well, God is in control of everything, but evil
happens, so that means that people must be able to do whatever they want and
God isn't in control of those people.
We just played Mario Baseball, right?
We just said, well, people actually can do whatever they want.
God's not in control of those people.
Right.
We just, we just compromise on who God says he is.
Right?
We just turned, and I'll leave the show into Mario Baseball, right?
We just turned Aaron Judge into Bowser, right?
That's what we did.
Some of you have like, I have no clue what you're talking about.
Um, but some of you are like, that makes perfect sense.
Um, the third way we sometimes compromise when we talk about this is God isn't
good and I think this is the one that is the most dangerous for you.
I think this is the compromise that's most dangerous for you.
Hopefully most of you aren't saying, well, evil exists, so
that means God doesn't, right?
Hopefully that's not where you're at.
And if that is, that's okay.
Um, I'm glad you're here.
That's why we're here.
Right?
If you're thinking, well, if God was real, he wouldn't have let my parents
get divorced, and you're saying, therefore, God doesn't exist, right?
I'm glad you're here.
Um, most of you probably aren't thinking, well, that means that.
God is in control.
Most of you, this is the one that you're in danger for is Well, I don't
know if God really loves me that much because he let that happen.
I don't really know if I can trust God's plans that are good for me if
he let that bad thing happen, right.
I didn't get into the school I wanted to get into.
Right?
I didn't, um, my life didn't go the way I wanted to.
I didn't get to date that person, or this bad thing happened to me, or my family
went through this, or my relative died.
Right?
And your temptation is to say, well, God, you're not good to get angry at God.
Right?
To be bitter.
I think we've all been there.
We've all felt like, man, God, how could you let that happen?
Because we know he's in control.
We know he exists.
And then we say, God, I just, I just don't think you're that good.
I'm smarter than you.
If I was God, I would've done things differently.
That's what we say, and that's what we're saying.
We're saying, God, you're not good.
You're not good.
Your way is not as good as mine.
And that's what we're saying, right?
When we get bitter and angry at God, and we know that that's not true, right?
Mark 10, Jesus said to the rich young man, he said, why do you call me good?
No one is good except God alone.
So God is good.
God defines goodness.
God is how we know what goodness is.
And so this I think is your biggest challenge.
Your biggest
challenge in facing the problem of evil is to be bitter when
bad things happen, right?
To not trust God when bad things happen to say, yeah, that might be the God of
the Bible, but I don't want that God.
I think that's probably gonna be your biggest challenge.
'cause we've all been there, right?
Something bad happens and you're like, God, why did you do this?
I wouldn't have had it go this way.
And as you get older, guess what?
More bad things are gonna happen and honestly, probably
harder things are gonna happen.
And you're gonna have to ask yourself, do I really believe that God is good?
So I really believe that a good God would let this happen.
Do I really believe that a good God would let my grandpa die?
Do I really believe that a good God would let this family member pass
away without hearing the gospel?
Right?
You're gonna have to deal with that.
Does a good God really let those things happen?
And so, uh, we don't just wanna not compromise on who God says he is.
Our third point is that we wanna confidently defend God's goodness.
That's one of the biggest takeaways I want you to be able to do.
By Thursday evening, right by Thursday evening, when we get back, back home,
I want you to be able to confidently say God is good, even though all these
bad things happen, and here's why.
Right?
If, if you can do that, you've succeeded at revival, you've had or not
revival, you've had a great two days.
If by the end of Thursday night you can say.
Yes, bad things happen, but God is so good and here's why.
And I believe that with all my heart.
That's what I want for you.
I want for you to be able to be able to, to look your friends in the eye, right
if, or look yourself in the mirror, right?
When you're tempted to be bitter towards God, I wanna be able to say,
God is good, even though this really bad thing happened, and here is why.
First of all, right?
We know that God defines good and evil, right?
We saw that in our that mark 10 verse, right?
Good and evil come from God.
So our definition of what's good has to come from who God is, right?
We can't make up our own definition for what good is, right?
We can't say that nine inches is a foot, right?
That's us coming up with our own standard instead of using what's really true.
12 inches is a foot right?
So we already talked about, right?
No one would have a sense of good and evil without God.
No one would even know what good is if it wasn't from God.
'cause you would just be able to do whatever you want.
And no one could tell you that's bad because who are they to
tell you that's bad, right?
Who are they to say, well, you shouldn't lie.
You shouldn't be selfish, you should be humble.
Why do you care?
They have no authority to say that if they're just another bag of
molecules jumping around, right?
But if God's the one who says it, then that that matters.
But also I want you to think about what is evil?
'cause that'll probably help you wrap your mind around, well,
what's good and what's evil?
Well, evil is anything that steals God or steals glory from God.
We talked about this in Romans one, right?
What makes sin sinful?
You ever think about that?
What makes sin bad?
Why does God say some things are sinful and some things are not?
What makes sin sinful is what it says about God.
That's why you can do.
Good things for bad reasons, and they're sinful, right?
You can love something too much, right?
You can love ice cream too much.
Ice cream is a great thing.
I'm so glad that God made ice cream right, James One.
Every good and perfect gift is from above, right?
Ice cream is not too far down the list when I think of good
and perfect gifts from God.
But if you love ice cream too much, it becomes sinful.
It becomes an idol, right?
So because what you're telling is, what you're telling God essentially
is ice cream is better than you.
Ice cream is better than Jesus.
That's what you say, right?
You don't say it in your head, but that's what you're doing.
So what makes something evil is that it says, God's not important.
God's not, God's not trustworthy.
Right?
That's why.
Things like anxiety or anger or lust or whatever.
That's why these things are bad.
'cause they say, God, you're not trustworthy, you're not good enough.
You're not fill in the blank.
Right?
You're not in control.
And so for all of this stuff, right, all of these evil things that are gonna
happen to you, there's gonna be bad things that are gonna happen to you, right?
I I, I'm not gonna stand here and tell you, you life's gonna be great
because you're a Christian or because you go to church or whatever, right?
Your life's gonna be really hard.
It's gonna be really hard.
Things that happen to you, right?
There's, there's gonna be moments.
Where you don't want to be where you are, right?
There's gonna be times where you are going to have to come face to face
with your situation and say, how could a good God let this happen?
And I want you to be ready for that, right?
And I don't want you to put it off until 10:00 PM and you have to do your homework.
I want you to start now.
The sooner you start the, the more confident you're gonna be.
And I don't wanna just say God is good because Lewis said he was
good, or my parents said he's good, or my church said he was good.
Right.
Have you ever been roped into like, um, something, someone else's idea
and you had to like stand up for it?
This happened to me recently.
There was something that, um.
So what was it?
Okay, yeah, here it was.
So Shay and I had this plan that we wanted to do, um, and I wasn't
like super sold on the plan.
Um, and I had tell someone, oh, here's what we want to do.
And they were like asking me questions about it and like,
why do you wanna do this?
Like, is this a good idea?
And I was like, well, you know, uh.
We wanna do it 'cause it'd be good.
And it was super awkward.
'cause I was like, I actually don't know.
I'm just doing this because like, we kind of want to, but it was mostly
like not me wanting to, it was like Shay wanting you to do it right.
Um, I don't want you to do that with God being good.
I don't want you to say, well I guess God is good because I go to church.
So I have to say that I don't want you to say, oh, I guess God is good because
I am, uh, my parents are Christians.
Or, uh, the, the Bible said it right.
I want you to own it for yourself.
I want you to say, this is a good idea because I believe it with all my heart.
I, I believe who God is.
I see it in his word.
I see it in my life.
I'm so confident.
I'm so sure this is a good idea.
Right?
And so you can get there.
You can get there from, oh, I, I just think God's good
'cause my parents told me.
To, I trust Jesus with all my heart, and that's why I think he's good.
Right?
And there's things that Shea and I talk about, and it's her
idea, and she tells me about it.
And I'm like, that's awesome.
Let's do that.
That's so good.
And then we, I jump on board and I'm like, yeah, I own it for myself.
I'm like, yeah, that is a good idea and I want to do that too.
So I want you to feel that way about God's goodness.
I want you to be prepared to defend his character, his goodness, not just
to others, but to yourself, right?
There's gonna be moments where you're thinking, man, how could
a good God let this happen?
Why did this happen to me?
Why did this happen to my friend?
Why did this happen to my family?
And you're gonna have to look yourself in the eye and say, here's why.
You can still believe that God's good.
'cause otherwise, you're not gonna make it right.
If you don't think God's very good, if you don't think God
really loves you that much.
Why would you follow him?
Right?
You're doing that 'cause you have to, not 'cause you want to and I want you
to follow Jesus 'cause you want to.
Okay?
So let's pray and uh, we'll go ahead and go to small groups.
Just follow your leader.
Find a good spot.
You can go outside, you can go in your room, you can go in the pool.
I don't know.
Do whatever you want.
Well do whatever your leader tells you to do.
Um, not whatever you want.
Anyway, let's pray and we will talk about the sermon.
God, we are so glad that you are good and that we can be confident about it.
We're so glad that you show us how good you are.
So I pray for these students that they would be convinced with all their
heart that you are amazing, that you're so loving, you're so good, um, and
that they would be able to articulate to themselves and to others why.
So I pray that for these next couple days, that we would take that seriously,
that we'd really think about this.
That wouldn't just be something that we're, we're having to do, just so
we can also go to camp and have fun.
But this would be something that we're doing because we.
Wants to wrestle with this problem.
I pray for anyone here who's maybe thinking about, um, they're really
wrestling with, does God really exist or is he really in control or is
he really, does he really love me?
I pray that they would be honest about that.
They'd be willing to share that and talk about that.
Um, and that you would, you would just give them a good answer from your
word, uh, on why they can trust you.
We pray this all in Jesus' name.
Amen