Part 2 of "The Sep-aration of Church and State", we look at who is in charge!
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As always, thank you for watching Gospel Grit, where we seek to apply the Word of God, to the people of God, to the glory of God.
Part 2 of "The Sep-aration of Church and State", we look at who is in charge!
If you enjoy this podcast, please subscribe, follow, share the episode, like, or check us out in YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtvAv52Ldvfjf4CgYhYTZig
As always, thank you for watching Gospel Grit, where we seek to apply the Word of God, to the people of God, to the glory of God.
All right, welcome everybody to Gospel Grit, the channel where we seek to apply the Word of God to the people of God, for the glory of God. As always, I am Taylor. This is part three of our Problem of Pain series. In the previous two we discussed first of all the seven misconceptions or issues that people have when they frame the issue of the problem of pain. In the second one we talked about the fact that God is all-powerful and because he's all-powerful he is able to do anything that power entails. So in this third installment and we should have one more after this we're going to look at the second part of premise, one that if God is all powerful and that he's all loving, then he could stop evil or he would want to stop evil. So in this part, part three today, we're going to address the fact that he would want to stop evil, the fact that he would want to stop evil. We're going to examine that claim and discuss from the scriptures and sound, hopefully, logic that just because God does not exalt or exalt in evil, he doesn't glory in it, he has no pleasure and he takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked, that even though that's true, god also has a good and rightful purpose not just to allow or ordain evil, as we discussed last week, but His relationship to it. This is where the felt problem of pain and evil comes in, because people ask the question all the time what is God doing? And if he is doing nothing, why is he doing nothing? Or why is he relating to pain and evil in a way that we can't seem to understand as being appropriate? And so we're going to tackle this and to frame this issue. We have to stop and ask if God is all-loving, and he is, and he's all-powerful and he is, then we have to explain it in a way that is both comprehensive but also scripturally accurate, and ultimately, we want to be pastoral as we discuss this issue too, so as we frame it.
Speaker 1:I said this maybe last week all evil produces suffering, but not all suffering comes from moral evil. I said last time that in session two, there's really no such thing as natural evil. We talk about natural evil all the time, but there's really no such thing as natural evil. The world is fallen, yes, but the world is not evil. Moral agents are evil and they inflict evil upon the world. Hell will be full of people who are wicked and vile, both fallen angels and fallen unregenerate human beings. But it's not tornadoes and hurricanes, it's not plagues and illnesses. It literally just is the fact that there are moral agents who are disobedient to God and therefore, because they are responsible for their evil and that's important because they're responsible for the evil, they will be punished forever and ever, for all of eternity, because they did not come to Christ for redemption and His saviorship and lordship. So just because evil produces suffering does not necessarily mean that all suffering comes from evil, at least moral evil.
Speaker 1:So we stated earlier in the previous sessions that the argument positions the issue as if the highest good and calling for God on our lives is just simply that we are supposed to be happy and content with our world at all times, full stop. And that's not true. So let's pause here. It's not biblically accurate to say that the goal of our lives, and therefore the goal of God for our lives and for the construction of reality, is for our happiness, that it's for our joy. Ultimately, while God cares about our happiness and certainly much more so cares about our joy in Him, the goal of existence is not that we would be content, in all matters and circumstances, to assume that we would be content in all matters and circumstances. To assume that we would be content in all matters and circumstances is a fundamental misreading of the gospel and it is in part so prevalent in why, I think, so many people wrestle with the issue of the problem of pain in our culture, mainly because we have believed the prosperity gospel or its cousins or varying degrees of prosperity light, for example and because of that we have bought the hook line and sinker that ultimately God wants us to be happy and anything that threatens our happiness is therefore seen to be evil or seen to be bad, and the calling of God on our lives is not about our happiness. So we have to understand that moral evil is what causes suffering. But some suffering can happen because of living in a fallen world, and it's not any moral agent to blame. I mean, we don't blame the devil for every single thing that happens. We don't blame other fallen human beings or fallen angels. We live in a cursed universe, a fallen world, and because of that there is calamity, but not just random, accidental calamity.
Speaker 1:We talked about that last time in part two, that God ordains all things that come to pass, but now that we're talking about the motives, some of the sting is taken out if we just realize that moral agents are the one running amok in God's world with all of the evil that is being produced and transpiring. But also the second point, that we're not created for happiness. That's not the reason why we exist, and so that would reframe things for us when we start to look at God's motive and His intentionality in relationship to evil. It's not the highest good. If that was the highest good for creation at all, of any sort, including us, then God would indeed be hateful. So hear me say that If the highest calling on our lives is that God would make us happy, healthy and wealthy what the prosperity gospel promises then to not do so would be a violation of the fundamental reason why we were created. And if there's a violation of the fundamental reason why we were created, how God constructed and ordered reality, then that would be evil and it would be a travesty and it would be horrible right, and that God would be maniacal in allowing evil, because the goal of the universe would be infringed upon in every way all day long, which is our happiness. But the Bible does not make that case whatsoever, in fact, you see John 7, 1 through 3, that eternal life is knowing Jesus Christ and knowing the Father who sent Him. So there is no real biblical defense for the idea that happiness is what we're here for.
Speaker 1:So a few reminders as we continue here. We were made for God, not the other way around. Genesis 1.26,. We were created in God's image, not that he was created in ours. We don't get to construct a God in our own image, according to Romans 1, that the culture there at Rome had done and every culture all throughout human history has done, including our own here in America. We don't get to reconstruct God in our own image. We don't get to fashion Him in our likeness. We don't get to reconstruct Him in a way that is more palatable to us and bending to our cultural needs and whims. We don't get to do that.
Speaker 1:And because of that we have to remember things about God. He never had a beginning right, and because he never had a beginning, it would be a terrible universe that that existed, whether he created it or not, if the sole reason that we existed was to please ourselves. So if hedonism was true, if the fact that eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die is true and that that's what God made us for. And this could go either way. Whether God exists or not, we could certainly be hedonists and we would be nihilists, but on the basis of hedonism, if God made us for our own pleasure, then this would be a truly evil universe. Not just because pleasure is sometimes so hard to come by and is never lasting we all know that if we're more than five years old. But we also understand that this universe would be lacking in substance, and so God created a universe that is meaningful and with intention. It's laden, it's pregnant with intention in every way, shape and form, because he is in control of this universe and all that takes place in it.
Speaker 1:So we are those half-hearted and double-minded creatures and we have to remind ourselves, when we talk about His intentionality and His emotional relationship to evil and the problem of pain, that God owes us nothing. God owes us wrath. God owes us wrath. God owes us punishment, our just desserts on the level of actions, words, empty words, hollow vanities, but also because of rejecting His Son, we certainly are owed our own eternal perdition and suffering, on and on and on, because of the person with which we have sinned against. So when we talk about, that God owes us nothing but hell and damnation. We have to remember that when evil comes into our lives, not only in suffering and pain, not only is it that we don't exist for pleasure and therefore pain is not a threat to our existence a threat to our existence, but also pain has a rightful place, at least for now, when we talk about the fallenness of this world. It has a rightful place, and that place is that God is shaping and crafting us through the trials and tribulations. Right, john 16, in this world you will have trouble, but fear not, I have overcome the world. I think that's verse 33.
Speaker 1:So what we get from God is sheer and unadulterated grace, and anything that doesn't meet up to that standard we cry foul, but we're looking at it wrong. Happiness is not what we're owed. We're not owed anything but justice, and because we don't get justice, we rejoice in that reality, and so we must keep that at the top of our minds. On top of all that, do we believe that God wants what we want more than what he wants? And that's the question I really want to place before you.
Speaker 1:Do we honestly believe in the way that we behave, the way we talk about salvation and man's role in salvation, the way we talk about the Bible, the way we talk about the American dream, the way that we talk about the Bible, the way we talk about the American dream, the way that we talk about sanctification, the way that we talk about how we construct and order our lives around God's decrees and God's preceptive will and His Word. Do we honestly believe that God wants what I want more than what he wants? I know that sounds ridiculous when I phrase it that way, but we have to evaluate some of our fundamental presuppositions about our life. So oftentimes we behave that God is working for us and we craft Him in our image. He wants what we want and he wants what's best for us. What's best for us has got to be what we think we need or want, and that's just not true. It's just patently false actually. So God does not want what you want.
Speaker 1:I mean, how foolish is it that you're double-minded, as James says, and we change our minds and we're duplicitous and we lie to ourselves and we lie to other people and we lie to God, but yet God is supposed to be such a wonderful gentleman that all he could ever possibly want is you to get your way, even if it means him not getting his way, because human will and human freedom is so glorious, it's so magnificent, it's such a great creation of his that he wants what you want. It's so magnificent, it's such a great creation of his that he wants what you want and he would never violate what you want or never bring, in this case, pain or suffering into your life because you don't want that and because you don't want it. It must be the greatest good for you and he needs to get with the program. I mean, how ridiculous, how blasphemous, how heretical, how nonsensical is it?
Speaker 1:Everything in the Bible screams that God truly is ruling and reigning, that Christ is sovereignly king overall, and a king gets what a king wants. And so we have to understand that I don't find satisfaction and pleasure and joy in the things of this world. That was never the goal right. We're in the world, but we're not of this world. That was never the goal right. We're in the world, but we're not of the world. The goal was always to find satisfaction and treasure and joy in Christ. But I only do that in Christ by the power of the Spirit, through the Word of God. That's how I do that to the glory of God, the Father. So this is insanity.
Speaker 1:And again, when we talk about God's emotional relationship to pain and suffering, we've got to remember what's going on here. The insanity is trying to get God on board with your agenda in prayer, right as if you're informing him of something so that he can make a more informed decision, and sometimes we speak to him like we think that he's supposed to do something that he just doesn't know about. Yet these same folks always seem to be the ones that have a problem with the problem of pain, the ones that choke to death on the issue, because they can't seem to get over how man seems to be sovereign. At least the way we see ourselves, man seems to be sovereign and God seems. Way we see ourselves, man seems to be sovereign and God seems to play a second fiddle to that. If, at any point praying to God, I think that I am more gracious than God, I'm not talking about God anymore.
Speaker 1:So these people who have this bleeding heart argument for the problem of pain or why it just is absolutely untenable with the Christian God, you have to remember and you have to remind yourself there is no such thing as a more gracious being. I don't care if it's Mother Teresa, I don't care if it's your grandmother, I don't care if it's your best friend or you. There is no such thing as a more gracious being, is no such thing as a more gracious being, more kind, more loving, more compassionate, more forgiving, more gracious being than God himself. So at no point do we need to bake into our assumption when we discuss the problem of pain, that God is somehow needs to be won over to our side, because we have sentimentality on our side and he's above that. But sometimes we got to kind of talk him into it. Right that we've got to somehow get him on board with being a little more gracious. You got to kind of loosen up a little bit. You're kind of too stiff, god. That's ridiculous and it also is blasphemous.
Speaker 1:If at any point when I pray do I think I'm more holy, that I know what's better, that I am more in line with His word or His will, far be it from us. We have got to stop and recalibrate who we're talking about. I'm not praying to God anymore if that's the case, just a jelly belly with a soft spot for misfit toys like me and you, me and you. I think we think God is so sappy and sentimental that he's not serious about holiness and that he's not serious about rectifying this broken and distraught world that we live in, that he's not doing it not only just through redemption in my mind, the greatest miracle, bringing a dead soul back to life but he's also doing it in a million billion ways all around you at this very moment, and those ways may be clear to you and they may not, but he's doing that in ways that you will never comprehend. But he is rectifying the situation right.
Speaker 1:I think we just want him to be sentimental. We just want him to be sympathetic to our plight and our cause. We don't want him to actually be in control. And that's the thing is is we can cry and play our little, world's smallest violin when it comes to the problem of pain, and we can get so bent out of shape about how we think God is not doing right by this group of people and this afflicted group, and the drought in Africa and the war in Israel and, whatever it may be, the election season coming up here in America. We can complain about all of those. We can complain about macro issues and micro issues. But ultimately the question boils down when it comes to pain is what do you think he is? What do you think his goal is? How do you think he relates to these things? How do you think he relates to you?
Speaker 1:No matter how many times I've prayed for my little boy, my son and nonverbal and all of the things that go on with him, I always have to remind myself I said it recently that I don't love my son more than he loves him. I'm not more gracious to my son than he is gracious to him. I'm not more kind to my son. Not for one second of my life have I cared more about him than God does. And so I don't know what's best for my son. I don't know what's best for me. I only know what's best for me in so much as I listen to the Holy Spirit through the Word of God, and even then the communication issue faultiness is on my end. I don't know. It's so arrogant to stop and behave and point your little finger in God's face and put your finger on His nose and say how dare you, how could you let these things happen in my life? As if we have all the information or, more importantly, as if he doesn't have all the information or as if he doesn't have perfect intentionality with all that goes on in your life.
Speaker 1:That Romans 8. 28 really is true that God works all things. The most startling part of that verse is the word all that. It's not just some, he's not just juggling some pins that Satan throws in the air this example I used the other day. He's actually working and ordaining all things that come to pass for your good and for his glory, but for those who are called according to his purpose, and if you know Christ, then that's a promise that hopefully you cling to.
Speaker 1:So I don't know what's best for my son. I already said I don't know what's best for me, but he does and that I didn't create my son. I don't have any of the information that is necessary to properly evaluate his situation other than what I see, and that because I didn't create him, even though I love him, god created him. God created all the circumstances in our life with a loving hand, and that I am not thinking any more than the present moment and, at the very best, a few steps down the road. I mean, we can talk about a 20-year plan, all we want, but most of us change our minds between here and 30 minutes about multiple things. We don't have really anything in concrete because we don't know, we can't control our own thoughts or emotions and desires, or we can't control any of it, and all of those are true. But God is thinking a billion years into eternity with all of his intentionality towards us, and we can't do that. So I have to remember that I am but of yesterday.
Speaker 1:I have very little wisdom. I have very little grace, little love. My love is selfish. Oftentimes it's tainted with selfishness. My grace is not unconditional, it's conditional. My mercy is more like bartering with people and my kindness oftentimes must be wooed. My forgiveness is also conditional. All of those are shameful to say, but all of them are very much true and I would submit to you that's probably true about you too. I have never been righteous in and of myself for one second of my entire life. But he lives in unapproachable glorious light. The foundations of the temple shake in his presence and flaming angels scream in a mixture of praise and holy terror, while covering their face, according to Isaiah 6.
Speaker 1:But somehow, when we talk about the problem of pain, I insinuate or assume that I have the right to question Him. Somehow, I assume that I have the right to suffer as God's enemy, especially as His child. Far be it from us. No, I do not have that right. I don't have that right. God is the only comfort that we have in the midst of suffering. Right, he is the only comfort that we have in the midst of suffering. Job, though he slays me yet will I trust in him?
Speaker 1:You see, the first part of the premise is that God can't do what he wants to do, and the second part is that he won't do what he can do. When we say God is, if he's all powerful, he could stop evil. If he's all loving, he would want to stop it. And because evil is not stopped, god's either not all powerful or not all loving, or he's neither, or he doesn't exist. But ultimately it's an accusation against God's character, his right to be God, his right to be perfect, holy, gracious, kind, merciful, forgiving and loving All of those things simultaneously in the world in a million billion ways all around you. It insinuates that God can't do what he wants to do or that he won't do what he can do, and my assertion is this one tonight is actually worse than the first part of the premise. It's one thing for God to not be able to stop and that would be horrific to be able to not stop evil but to insinuate that he doesn't want to, that he is apathetic, that he is some maniacal kid with a magnifying glass burning the feelers off of an ant that is horrific.
Speaker 1:We cannot, as Christians, let sinners form this argument in certain ways to blaspheme the character of God and impugn His name. The issue at stake here is if God is good or not and Christian, if you're listening to this if he is not good, not only is there no such thing as good, but every malady and soulish twinge, every pain you feel in your life and it's full of it, we all know that but every pain and soulish groaning and longing that Romans 8 talks about is a knife being twisted into your soul and your body, maybe as well, for the pointless pleasure of an egomaniacal God who is like a boy again burning an ant's feelers off of his head with a ray of sunshine through a magnifying glass. That's what's at stake here. I think we don't think about this because we assume it's all philosophical or moral or ethical or religious or whatever metaphysical. But the truth is if God can stop evil, but he just enjoys it, that he just likes it. We are in worse trouble, arguably, than if he wanted to stop it and couldn't. So the thought, the sickening thought, that God would take any sort of pleasure in what we deal with when it comes to pain is unbelievable.
Speaker 1:Thank God that the opposite is true, ladies and gentlemen. Not only do you have His eternal favor in Christ, but also he is conspiring everything in your life. He personally is conspiring everything in your life the bird that flies over your head and poops on your window. The dog that made you slam on your brakes on your way to work this morning when you were already late. Your pink slip that you get at work. The sudden death of a loved one.
Speaker 1:The physical pain our bodies are often in the soulful agony of despair and depression that we battle and we fight, and we wrestleieties that flare up at every turn and every feeling of turmoil in a million ways Some of them are indescribable that you can't utter to another human being, and the million other forms of distress and degeneration that our fallen bodies and our fallen creation and our battle with sin, with the old man on a soulish level, that we fight, that we seem to feel to be out of line with God's good and loving purpose, is not at all true. His intentionality is that, for our eternal good, these things that I just listed are ordained not by some random accidental happenstance, but by Him, right that, far from Him not being there, he is ordaining all of these things that come to pass in your life for your good, for His glory. All of them without exception, the good, the bad and the evil. This is good news. It's good news that evil from the hand of an all-good God who is all-wise, all-loving, all-powerful and all-holy, is not ultimately evil, because evil is in the intention. Evil is in the intention. This means that he is orchestrating and ordaining all things because he loves you. That's the reason, so far from the fact that God is some egomaniacal kid burning the feelers off an ant. Far from that, in fact, it's unbelievably the opposite. It's that he's ordaining all of these wicked and horrific things into your life by secondary means and causes, while not tempting anyone and not being tempted himself, and while he's not leading people into sin or into evil, but that he's ordaining all of these things precisely because he loves you, because his plan is working in those billion different ways.
Speaker 1:I said this before the devil is God's devil. See Job 1 and 2 if you don't believe me. God used him to crucify Jesus. He used him to tempt Jesus and he used him to tempt Adam and Eve.
Speaker 1:While God does not sin or tempt anyone to sin or force them to, he uses wicked instruments to bring about perfect goodness. He uses fire to regrow a forest. He uses death to bring about resurrection. He uses a tree eaten from to bring about a tree hung from. He uses a tree eaten from in the Garden of Eden in Genesis 3, to bring about the greatest glory for himself with a tree hung from by his own son, who came and became the second Adam after the first Adam grievously failed his test. He uses the sin of one man to bring about the redemption of an untold multitude. What a glorious truth. The gospel that that is true, that his son would die in my place in an untold multitude that will be with me in heaven.
Speaker 1:Because of one man, his son, the God-man. He uses the most wicked and evil thing ever done, the death of the Christ at the hands of evil and wicked men, to bring about the most good, unequivocally, and the most glory and most salvation for men. Evil was not just something that God knew would happen. Even it was something God ordained, again through the will of creatures and through secondary causes. Evil is not good, but for now it is good that evil exists. When its purpose is over, it won't exist anymore. God will throw it into eternity, into the lake of fire. Keys of death in Hades. Jesus assured John in Revelation 1 that he's got them hanging around his belt. More accurately, though, that death and pain will be thrown into that lake of fire as an eternal reminder that God has triumphed over evil and he is just holy, righteous and perfectly wise in all of the ways that he deals with our pain and suffering.
Speaker 1:So in this episode, as a recap, we have talked about how we have to understand not just that God is in control of all things and ordaining all things that come to pass, but that God is also triumphing over them through His love and through His attitude, and bringing about not just the things he wants to pass, but the things he wants to pass for your good, and that the intention is for you to love you, to serve you, to take care of you, to honor his son.
Speaker 1:So, as always, thank you guys for joining us. We will see you on the next episode, part four and some of the others we've got coming up. Thank you, as always, for supporting us. We now have a podcast that's basically located wherever podcasts are found, so if you want to listen to the audio it's a little better quality or if you enjoy the edits here on YouTube and all the different screens and the words and all of the stuff on there, then stay. Stay with us here. But we love you guys. We thank you for joining Gospel Grit, the channel where we apply the word of God to the people of God, for the glory of God, and I'll see you guys on the next episode.