The second session this afternoon was given by Dr. John MacArthur. Dr. MacArthur has served as pastor-teacher of
Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, Calif., for nearly forty years,
and his teaching is available worldwide on the radio, Internet, and
television program Grace to You. Dr. MacArthur provides training to pastors as president of the Master's College and Seminary as well as through the annual Shepherd's Conference. His prolific writing ministry includes numerous pamphlets and books such as The Truth War, The Battle for the Beginning, and Hard to Believe.
The title of Dr. MacArthur's message was Why Does God Allow So Much Suffering and Evil? John mentioned that Larry King likes to go back to this question a lot. Many skeptics simply cannot get past this question: How can God be all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-good, and yet evil is pervasive in our society?
EVIL EXISTS, AND GOD IS NOT TAKEN BY SURPRISE
But the Bible gives us an answer. It is not "Well, God is off the hook, Adam and Eve did it." The follow-up to that question would be "Well then, why did God make them that way?" Or what about, "Well, Satan is to blame?" But then a skeptic would ask, "Why did God make angels with the possibility that one of them would fall and take a whole bunch of other ones with him?"
Ultimately we have to go back to God.
1. Evil exists. [Only the leaders of Christian Science would deny such things.] Evil exists in a dominating way today. It goes far beyond what we see on the news. It is systemic and pervasive in our world.
A. There is natural evil in the world. This form of evil is impersonal and external (diseases, tidal waves, viruses, volcanic eruptions).
Dr. MacArthur read The Great Influenza: The story of the deadliest pandemic in history by John Barry this summer and was fascinated by the massive spread of death due to this disease.
B. There is moral evil in every human heart. Man is driven by lusts that produce sin and death. Man is evil to the core, leading to all kinds of pain from broken marriages to ruined friendships to wars between nations.
C. There is supernatural evil - demonic evil. Demons are lying spirits, and the whole world lies in their power (I John 5:19). They infest our lives at times, as we learn from Job, Peter and Paul. They promote false religions throughout the world. One of the most dangerous in our day is Mormonism, which is making an all-out effort to pass for a legitimate form of Christianity. But it has more in common with Hinduism than Christianity. The more Mormonism seeks to look benign, the more deadly it is. Our struggle, as Paul said, is "not against flesh and blood."
D. The eternal evil of hell - a horror to those who will abide there forever.
2. God is real, and He is absolutely sovereign. He created everything, controls everything, and is governing every minute detail in the universe, including the ultimate consummation of our planet by fire (prophesied in Scripture). Psalm 115:3, "Our God is in the heavens; he does all that he pleases." Those who struggle with the sovereignty of God might consider the intellectual difficulty of God not being sovereign. God is not trying to get "off the hook" on His being sovereign and allowing (and planning) for evil. He is the only Potentate, the Sole Ruler of the universe. [Dr. MacArthur then cited numerous Scriptural passages that show that God takes ultimate ownership for the existence of evil. He takes full responsibility for the existence of evil, and its unfolding in this world.]
Sidebar: Armenians are OK with the existence of evil, nor do they want to deny power, knowledge or goodness to God. However, they don't want responsibility for evil to fall upon God so they diminish God. They say God either lacks the power to stop evil or He "chooses" to limit His power. Or, He has the power, but He is limited in His knowledge. Evil takes Him by surprise when it happens. [John then briefly described, and severely castigated, process theology. He then humorously debunked open theism.]
3. God wills evil to exist, though He Himself is not its author.
Well, what explanation for this should we use?
A) There "needs" to be a certain amount of evil to "balance out" the good God (yin and yang -- for every plus there has to be a minus, that sort of thing). Evil is "just there" -- because it has to be there to contrast the good. [Though this answer falls short, there is a sense of truth to this: Evil is a deprivation -- a distortion of the good.]
B) You just cannot have a God that takes away our free will. Free will is more important to God than precluding the possibility of evil. [But then you still have to answer why did God make people that could use their free will to do such evil?]
WHY DOES GOD WILL FOR EVIL TO EXIST?
The Westminster Confession reads: "God from all eternity, did, by the most wise and holy counsel of His
own will, freely, and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass; yet so, as thereby neither is God the author of sin, nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures; nor is the
liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather
established." (Chapter 3, Sect. 1)
God appears infinitely more glorious because of the existence of evil. We praise Him all the more because of what He has done to overcome evil. At the cross, the righteousness of God was displayed in the wrath of God being poured out on Christ. Look at Romans 9:22: "What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power,
has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for
destruction." God gets glory from His wrath and judgment. But He has also made known His mercy. God is demonstrating the full range of His glory by putting the full spectrum of His attributes on display. God puts His righteousness on display in the way He confronts evil (Rev. 15:3-4). The greatest evil ever perpetrated (the murder of Jesus) was orchestrated by God to accomplish great good (Acts 2:22-24). God answered Job (chap. 38-39) with a survey of His omnipotence and exhaustive knowledge. It is foolish to assume that God has to justify to us His decisions in this regard.
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