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August 20

Good God, Bad World, Why? - The Big Five Series #4

Production No. 1024

Speaker: SHAWN BOONSTRA, MARK FINLEY

View this program's Scriptures.

Page format: all pages

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

SHAWN: From where?

MARK: From heaven.

SHAWN: From heaven.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

MARK: Right.

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

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