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Jun 08, 2014

Facing the Challenge of Evil, Pt. 2

Facing the Challenge of Evil, Pt. 2

Passage: Romans 3:1-31

Preacher: John Repsold

Series: God is NOT Dead!

Category: Christian Apologetics

Keywords: evil, suffering, theodicy, all-loving, all-powerful, god's purposes

Summary:

This message is a continuation of the treatment of the problem of evil. It deals with the third premise of the attack on belief in the God of the Bible that says such a God should remove evil and suffering from the world if he is both all-good and all-powerful. It also addresses the differences that exist between various religions and how they treat this problem of evil and suffering.

Detail:

Facing the Challenge of Evil—Part 2

June 8, 2014

 

Review: We’re in a series that is taking time to look at some of the many reasons why, contrary to a growing number of Americans, we believe that the God of the Bible exists. To be fair towards those who are denying the existence of God these days in our culture, we are looking at some of the major arguments they use to try and demonstrate that belief in God is illogical, silly, archaic or simply not credible. Hopefully over the course of the last few weeks you’ve at least seen that belief in God, specifically the God of the Bible, is actually far more logical, rational and reasonable from a variety of angles either in science, philosophy, religion or history.

So last week we tackled one of the more emotionally potent arguments for God’s non-existence—the existence of evil and suffering in our world. If you were here, you remember we looked at a short video outlining the problem of evil. In short, there are 3 premises we need to deal with in this argument. Here they are.

Premise #1: Evil and suffering exists.

Premise #2: God is all-loving and all-powerful

Premise #3: An all-loving, all-powerful God, if he existed, would remove suffering and evil.

Remember also that, since this is a deductive argument, if any one of the 3 premises can be shown to be false, then the whole argument against God’s existence collapses.

So from the Christian perspective, we tackled the first two premises last week.

Premise #1: Evil and suffering exists.

True or false according to the Word of God? TRUE. The Bible doesn’t in any way try to deny that evil is real. In fact, it is surprisingly graphic about just how “evil” evil can be. The three monotheistic religions of the world—Judiasm, Christianity and Islam, all agree on this general belief about the existence and reality of evil and suffering.

But there is one other major religious alternative to the biblical understanding of evil. That would be Eastern religions such as Buddhism, Hinduism and their Western counterparts, New Age religions and philosophies. I’ll try to be as fair and objective as I can be in stating what these religions teach about evil and suffering. Basically they call people to respond to the problem of evil and suffering with detachment.

The reason I think it is important for us as Christians to know is multi-faceted. For starters, some two billion people on our planet believe this about evil and suffering. If you travel to Cambodia to visit Mark or India to visit Ajay Pallai…or pretty much anywhere in the Far East, you will encounter this as the prevailing view of evil and suffering. But bringing it closer to home, most New Age religions are a watered-down version of Buddhism or Hinduism, made more palatable to Western sensibilities by minor modifications.

            Let’s start with Buddhism. Buddha as he was later known, grew up as Siddhartha (SI-dar-ta) Gautama (GAW-tama), a very wealthy and privileged Indian prince whose journey in life took him from privilege to disillusionment, to asceticism, and finally to “enlightenment.”

            In both Hinduism and Buddhism, evil and suffering are seen as basic to human life. Most Hindus see sacrifice as the way to deal with evil and suffering while most Buddhists and some Hindus reject the sacrificial tradition and pursue the goal of Nirvana—the blowing out of the fires of all desires and the absorption of the individual self into the infinite, “great deathless lake of Nirvana.” Buddha rejected both self-indulgence and self-mortification and chose instead “the Middle Path”—the right view, thought and action toward life. Buddhism sees life as evil, suffering, and affliction (dukkha).

            The remedy for evil, as Buddha saw it, is not to do away with the evil but to extinguish desire, whether that desire is against “evil” or for “good.” And really, it’s not just the extinguishing of desire that is the goal but the extinguishing of self by transcending yourself and becoming the “not-self.”

            The practical reality is that, in the Buddhist view there is simply no remedy for suffering in this world. Nor is there any prospect of a coming world without suffering. There is not even the hope that we will live free of suffering anywhere. Because in the end there is no “we” at all. It’s the liberation of extinction into Nirvana.

            Hinduism takes suffering and evil in a different direction. The relationship of God to the world is that of a dreamer to his dream (Hindu philosopher Shankara, 9th c.). Only the dreamer is real; the world (the dream) is an illusion. Our experience is really a world of illusion, ignorance and shadow, where individuality and diversity are thought to be real but are not. The notion of human rights and inalienable dignity of the individual are the stuff of dreams. Freedom is not the rights of the individual but liberation from the illusion of individuality.

            In the end, Buddhism and Hinduism both regard the Western passion for human rights as a form of narcissism and delusion. That may explain why that part of the world has experienced such great abuses against what we consider basic human rights and never birthed itself a political or social system that sought to alleviate suffering for the vast majority of people.

There is a third family of “faiths” in the modern world—the secularist family of faiths which includes atheism, naturalism and secular humanism. In these “non-faith faiths”, man is the measure of all things. There is no intrinsic meaning in the universe at all. Meaning is just to be invented by every person and imposed on their own world.

            So how does it respond to suffering and evil? Well, evil is what you define it to be…everything…or nothing. Suffering is just part and parcel of the inhospitable universe in which we find ourselves (by chance).

For Charles Darwin who made evolution and natural selection central to his view of life (as so many 21st century people do), reality almost always collapses into pessimism. Not only is natural selection utterly blind to evil and suffering, but it favors the “selfish gene” and the survivalist ethic of “might makes right” that is the evil heart of all oppression and abuse of power.

The second prominent feature of the Western secularist response to evil and suffering is how it responds to evil. Probably by virtue of Western culture’s Christian religious “hangover” from days gone by, rather than go the route of withdrawing from life, it calls for engagement—working to build, to fight and to leave the world a better place. We are seen as responsible for the further evolution of the human race and our entire planet. (Thus the Green movement’s attachment to secular humanism.)

One of the big problems, however, is reality. Have the years since humanity discovered that it was responsible for evolution and the future of the planet shown a new maturity in avoiding evil and establishing good? Hardly, as we saw last week in the history of the last 100 years alone of war, genocide, abortion and torture. Even the famous atheist Bertrand Russell admitted at the end of his life that his former call to people to make their own meaning by “ennoble[ing each] little day” was a dead end. Commenting on his own philosophy of life he said, “I wrote with passion and force, because I really thought I had a gospel. Now I am cynical about [my] gospel because it won’t stand the test of life.”

All that to say that the alternatives to recognizing what the God says is real evil due to real rebellion in the hearts of every human being leave us in a far inferior and darker place than agreeing with God about evil and much of human suffering that results from it.

            So Premise #1—Evil and suffering exist—holds up under the biblical view of God.

            Last week we also saw that Premise #2—that God is all-loving and all-powerful, also held up to the biblical claims about God. That, as we discussed, doesn’t always make our suffering easier. As we looked at the terrible suffering of Job in just about every imaginable area of life, we saw that deep suffering usually leads most of us at some point or points to question the love and goodness of God (or his omnipotence). But even in that amazing narrative of Job, God is still portrayed as all-powerful and all-loving.

Which brings us to the third premise.

Premise #3—And all-loving and all-powerful God, if He existed, would remove evil and suffering.

As the video last week noted, there are usually two main arguments against this premise.

1.)    One goes back to the issue of a logical impossibility—a world free of evil but with humans as free, moral agents. The only way for God to remove all evil would be to remove all possibility of evil by us and to do that He would have to “remove” or exterminate mankind. (The medicine seems worse than the disease!) So if you want a universe with human beings as free, moral agents, you have to admit both the possibility and the actuality of evil and resulting suffering. It’s impossible to have a world without evil and suffering while having humans as God made us.

2.)    The second weakness of this premise is that God may have many very good reasons for creating humans who could sin and suffer rather than creating humans who couldn’t. Some of those reasons he may reveal to us in this life and some he will not. Equally, He may have many good reasons for not intervening to stop or mitigate every effect of sin and evil in the world. Clearly, eliminating suffering and pain in life is not God’s highest priority or value…and therefore, it shouldn’t be ours either!

So what should be our experience in the face of evil? Before we answer that, let me suggest a couple of other things we should NOT focus on in our dealing with evil and suffering.

  1. Eliminating evil and suffering should not be our primary objective. Trying to do so may often lead us to perpetrate yet more evil. If you are going to limit evil, you will have to control people much more…more than what God has determined is right to do. In addition, suffering/pain as we saw last week is NOT necessarily evil. Lots of it comes from evil. But suffering may actually produce good results…especially when your suffering isn’t the result of your own evil. Just ask Jesus!
  2. Finding answers or trying to pinpoint the “reasons” for WHY a particular person or group of people are suffering won’t usually satisfy or make the suffering easier to handle. ILL: John 9--man born blind. Jesus’ disciples asked whether his suffering was due to his or his parent’s sin. Jesus responded, “This happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him,” (Jn. 9:3).

Now let’s look at why eliminating evil and so much human suffering that results from evil is not God’s highest priority in human experience right now.

I say “right now” because it is clear from the Word that demonic and human evil will one day be confined to hell and banished from heaven. Until then, evil does not have free reign to do all the damage that it could. As horrendous as human evils have been through the centuries and still are in this world, evil is never totally unrestrained. God keeps it on a leash of varying length, depending upon what He is doing with human history at the time. And when the anti-Christ, the man of sin comes, God will give a very long leash to sin because the Holy Spirit that now restrains evil in this world both directly and through the presence of people He indwells, will be taken out of the way (2 Thess. 2:7) as never before. Read Revelation for the crib notes. Evil isn’t pretty and neither will life be when it is in control.

            As I mentioned last week, evil and its resultant suffering and misery actually helps we created beings to see and understand things about God that would remain hidden were it not for our need in the midst of evil and suffering. Paul talked about this in Romans 3 when he argued that our unrighteousness can actually “bring out God’s righteousness more clearly” (3:5). And he even anticipates what many today say in response to this argument that human sinfulness and suffering can actually increase what we see of God’s glory and greatness. “How can God judge us if his greatness is even more evident and outstanding against the backdrop of human sin,” the critic of this argument will say. “Let’s do evil that good may result,” their flawed reasoning goes (Rm. 3:8). To which Paul simply says, “Their condemnation is deserved.” Such thinking is flawed on many levels, not the least of which is a deep misunderstanding of God, evil, sin and grace.

So I want to take this out of the realm of simply biblical theology and move it into the realm of practical theology. In this room are a host of different life experiences with evil and suffering. I’ve heard some of the stories this week as I asked people to share that part of their story with me and possibly all of us today.

            Here is what I would like us to do right now. As the Holy Spirit asks you to share, would you just mention (BRIEFLY, please, so that you don’t limit what God may want others to share or hear today)

What evil & suffering has God allowed in your life… and what good has come from it?

Now, having said that, it is abundantly evident that no two people react exactly alike to the same evil or suffering. And very similar suffering can produce drastically different results depending upon how we deal with it.

ILL: Viktor Frankl, the famous Australian neurologist and psychologist as well as one of the survivors of Auschwitz, went on to develop a whole avenue of existential therapy around finding meaning in all forms of existence, even the most horrible like a Nazi death camp.

In his last book, Man’s Search for Ultimate Meaning, he makes an astounding observation from that horrific experience. “The truth is that among those who actually went through the experience of Auschwitz, the number of those whose religious life was deepened—in spite, not to say because of this experience—by far exceeds the number of those who gave up their belief.” [Quoted by O. Guinness, p. 237-8.]

Would that we could say the same thing about the effect that our secular college educational system has on the soul-life of young adults growing up in American churches today. What Nazi death camps could not do to the spiritual life of God-fearing people, secular higher education is in America! What does that say for all our attempts to shield our young people from the real effects of evil in our world? Maybe they need to see and suffer from more of it, not less???

What are we to DO about evil in our lives and this world?

  1. Resist it, flee from it and refuse to be its slave. (Romans 6) One of the most powerful ways we can do that in suffering is through FORGIVENESS. The world does not know what to do with people who actually forgive those who inflict evil and suffering on them. No other religion, no other God but Jesus, calls people to that kind of radical love and forgiveness…because it is God’s radical heart towards people like us.
  2. Take action against evil and suffering at every possible turn. One of the great dangers of developing a Christian apologetic about evil and suffering is that it will stay simply that—a verbal defense of the goodness of God rather than an actual, experiential personal commitment to challenge evil and suffering wherever we see it.
  3. William Wilberforce—raised in wealth and aristocracy, he was educated at Cambridge and elected to the House of Commons just days after his 21st birthday! But at age 26, he had a profound spiritual crisis which eventually led him to see what a waste he was making of his life simply living it for his own pleasure. It launched him on a new trajectory that would lead him to fight for the abolition of the slave trade and slavery in the British Empire. That fight took him his entire life. But in the process he transformed the conscience and mindset of Western society. The profound indifference of those who had wealth towards the plight of the poor and oppressed was replaced with a general conviction that “to whom much is given, much is expected.” Wilberforce went on to found 69 benevolent societies and to span what we know today as a sense of social conscience and moral responsibility of the privileged to help those less fortunate.
  4. Amy Charmichael—20th century missionary to India who founded Dohnavur Fellowship, a home for thousands of children caught up in the horrors of religious sex slavery in India. She confronted a practice many refused to even acknowledge in a land where her own people, the British, had used and abused the people and resources of India through colonialism. And she spend the last 20 years of her life bedridden due to a spinal injury. She knew what it was to experience the fellowship of Christ’s suffering in the midst of trying to help alleviate the sufferings of children.
  5. Mother Teresa of Calcutta
  6. Adonirum Judson, one of America’s first foreign missionaries, accepted God’s call to the resistant and hostile nation of Burma. There he buried 2 wives and 3 children. He was nearly starved to death as a prisoner of the Burmese government during their 2 year-war with England. He suffered a year-long depression in which he despaired of life. He saw only 18 converts in the first 12 years of ministry. He returned to the U.S. only once during his 38 years of missionary work. He was no stranger to suffering. He led the charge in approving and supporting the first single missionary women in foreign service at a time when such a thing simply was not done.
  7. Telemachus, a little Turkish monk in the Coliseum in Rome in the 5th century. Nearly three-quarters of a million gladiators had died to serve the Roman bloodlust. Yet this little man dared to stand up in that great coliseum and shout, “In the name of Christ, STOP!” The furious crowd stoned him to death for disturbing their entertainment. But it was the last time, and with their consciences now pricked, they banned the gory spectacle for good.
  8. You???
    1. Abortion that has claimed 1.2 billion children’s lives in the last 40 years in the world.
    2. Persecution of Christians—N. KOREA—every day there are 30,000 Christians in North Korean prison camps who rise 7 days a week, in the predawn hours, eat a few mouthfuls of corn porridge and cabbage, spend the next 15 hours in hard labor in coal mines, farm work and manual labor, return for the same meager meal before falling to sleep on concrete floors. Many are locked in torture chambers, caged like animals, forced to stand for hours in torturous positions and beaten until the vomit blood. Most are incarcerated for life and denied access of any kind to family or the outside world. 40 percent of the inmates die of starvation while most lose half their body weight.

How about signing a letter of solidarity and support for our brothers and sisters held in these hell-holes, challenging the evil we KNOW exists in our time and committing to pray for the repentance, salvation, softening and change of evil Kim Jong Un, Leader of North Korea? (See letter copies.)

Discover the “fellowship of His sufferings” when we are called to suffer by allowing the evil of others and its resulting suffering to do God’s divine transforming work.

Two days ago we observed the 70th anniversary of D-Day. It was one of the most horrific days in Allied war history. 5,500 troops lost their lives that day. 19,000 French civilians died in the campaign. Another 12,000 Allied troops died in the two months leading up to D-Day. And it would be another long year before the enemies of freedom would surrender.

            We are like the French Resistance of 1944. We know God’s kingdom is advancing. We have the sure promises of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ that he will ultimately triumph over all evil. But we also have his word that it will be a long and bitter battle that will still cost the lives of millions and the suffering of tens of millions.

            Our Resistence leader, Jesus, has given us a call—“Come and fight against what seems like impossible odds. Let go of your life so that you can truly find life. Take up your cross of dying to self every day and follow Me. At times you will receive orders that cause you to question. You will be in the dark about the whys and wherefores of this divine operation. You must trust that this Divine Resistance leader knows best. Only after the war is over will the secrets be open, the codes revealed, the true comrades vindicated, the traitors exposed, and sense made of the explanations…and the silences.

CLOSE:

1.)    Ready to resist evil in your own soul? How is God asking you to do that?

2.)    Ready to fight evil at every turn? Where is God asking you to do that?

3.)    Ready to experience the fellowship of Christ’s suffering in the pain of this life? What pain are you running from that God might want to use to grow you in Him?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

STORIES:

 

Carrie Allen-- talk about infertility and the blessing it became.

 

Kit Erhgood

Hi John,
When I was 3 weeks old I was rushed to the hospital. I was pronounced dead. I was dead for over 5 minutes and for some reason I started breathing again. I know its strange but I remember feeling the presence of God at 3 weeks old. I was tested relentlessly till I was 12 and put a stop to it. I was told I learned differently and and my IQ was 169. I also was told that I had Synesthesia.( I see colors when I hear sounds). I have spent most of my childhood being beat up for being different. I wanted to fit in and be popular so much that I went down the path of athletics to do so. I qualified for the Olympics when I was 17. I tried running away from all my pain literally. I ended up not going because I developed post polio syndrome and chronic fatigue. I thought my life was over. while growing up I always looked to my music to understand and heal from my wounds. It took 2 years of living on Maui and soul searching to understand that God had gifted me in a way that could help others as well as myself. I turned my focus purely on music and how it can heal, bring hope and peace to people. Even with the loss of part of a finger God does not want me to stop. God has taken a scarred boy that never fit in and made a strong flexible force with in me. I do what I do not because it is good or self serving, I do this because of an unquenchable passion. It is the same as breathing to me. I have to.

 

 

Tom Bates

On Halloween night my wife went over to Fatima to pick up our children from a church party.  A man came down 29th Ave. at 11:30pm 70+ mph and hit her coming from a side street. She ended up with head injuries and  in nine months we were divorced.  She move to California and took the children. She then helped my business partner take the business and run me out. I ended up with no family, assets or business living downtown.

With no car, money or business, I sat at a borrowed desk, with a borrowed phone and a borrowed ole pickup and restarted the business slowly.  Nine years later I met Susan.  Mt scriptures that I hung to were Romans 8-28 and Psalm 37-4.  The latter was my screen saver when I met Susie. I lived a life according to scripture. God just knew that I was due for an Upgrade.    Tom B

 

Darla Marlow-Ashcraft

Good Afternoon Pastor John,

You may not recognize my name. I am part of the Celebrate Recovery team that attended services last week.

Here’s a brief summary of my testimony

In 2010 I was leading the "perfect life". I had been happily married to a wonderful, God fearing, man for over 10 yrs. We were in the latter stages of the empty nest syndrome and just beginning to enjoy a less hectic life, My husband and I were leaders in our church. He directed the choir while I taught Sunday School and cooked for the homeless.

December 15, 2010 that all came crashing down. That morning, right before I started to check my email, he walked in and said that he needed to talk. Within 15 minutes, he confessed to sexually molesting our oldest granddaughter. It had been going on for a few years. The only reason that he confessed was because of the email I was about to open was from her mom.

Everything, including my faith was shaken to the core! I was alone, basically homeless and had not enough income to survive on.

I would love to say that my Faith kept me strong and I managed to stay on the right track, but I won’t lie. The next two years found me struggling to just cope with life, reverting back to old patterns and being really angry with God!

In December of 2012 I moved to Spokane to help care for three of my granddaughters while there mom goes to school. I straightened up my walk enough to look like a good role model, but I was still hurting inside and out.

Then in September of 2013 I read an announcement in the church bulletin about a new Celebrate Recovery program starting in my church. I thought that would be an awesome volunteer opportunity. Little did I realize that I needed Celebrate Recovery a lot more than it needed me. I am now the women’s leader in this ministry. Because of where God has lead me, through so many things in my life, I can tell other women, YES, I do understand, I have been there and, YES, there is hope, and YES, God loves you!!!

Blessings,

Darla Marlow-Ashcraft

 

 

Possible Study Questions:

  1. In John 9, Jesus heals the man born blind. It is an amazing story about suffering, sin, healing, rejection and worship.
  2. What does the disciple’s question about the cause of his blindness reveal about how people of his day viewed him, sin and suffering?
  3. Does Jesus’ answer about why the man was born blind comfort you or concern you? Why? How does Exodus 4:11 fit into this and your understanding of suffering?
  4. What problems did Jesus’ healing solve and cause for the blind man? In what kinds of additional suffering did his healing result?
  5. What do Jesus’ actions toward the blind man reveal to you about God’s heart for suffering people?
  6. When in your life have you found it most difficult to trust God with evil, pain or suffering? Why? How did God meet you in those experiences? What possible good have you seen come from those experiences? How did your view of those experiences change over time? Who has blessed you by their response to evil and suffering? Why?
  7. Revelation 6:9-11 presents us with a difficult truth about God and his timing in dealing with evil against his children. Living in the century that has experienced the martyrdom of more Christians than all centuries put together previously, how should this passage shape our expectation of life, death and suffering for the name of Christ? What do you think we as Christians should be doing to help the persecuted church around the world? (See Heb. 13:3; Mt. 5:44; Col. 4:3)
  8. Who do you particularly admire for fighting against evil and suffering in this world? What evils of this world bother you most? What evils of the church bother you most? What suffering of others bothers you particularly? What do you think God might want you to do about them? When? How?
  9. What are some of the dangers of living in a time when we hear about so many evils and so much suffering every day? How can we guard against those dangers?