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Blood & Oil Podcast
Feeling uninspired in your faith? Discover the dynamic, life-changing power of the gospel with Blood & Oil, the Christian podcast that's redefining what it means to follow Jesus in the modern world.
Dive deep into biblical truths with cutting-edge insights. Be encouraged by authentic stories of God's transformative grace. Gain practical wisdom to deepen your relationship with Christ. Find the courage to live out your faith with bold authenticity.
Blood & Oil Podcast is for Christians who are hungry for more. More depth. More power. More of an unapologetic, uncompromising faith that transforms lives. If you're ready to go beyond surface-level discussions and experience the full force of the gospel, press play and let this podcast be your guide.
Hosts: Pastor Jesse LaForce, Zane Wheeler, and Terrence Theodore
Thank you to our supporters, and please be reminded to use your own discernment as the views and opinions expressed by the hosts and guests may not reflect those of any other people, institutions, or organizations
Praise God for the opportunity to serve Him in this way. We hope you have enjoyed this episode and pray for blessings upon your day.
Intro music: "Floating Garden" by Aventure, "Espanã" by Dreamt
Blood & Oil Podcast
Does Evil Disprove God or Reveal His Purpose?
Why would a loving God allow evil to exist? This question has troubled seekers and believers for centuries, yet remains uniquely challenging for Christianity compared to other faith traditions. In this thought-provoking episode, we explore theodicy—the problem of evil—from multiple angles that will challenge and deepen your understanding.
The conversation begins by examining why this question specifically targets Christianity rather than other religions. Unlike Islam where Allah authors both good and evil, or dualistic religions with competing powers, Christianity claims a God who is simultaneously all-good, all-powerful, and sovereign—creating an apparent contradiction that demands resolution.
We dive into God's purpose in creation: the desire for genuine relationship based on love. Since real love requires freedom to choose, evil becomes possible—not because God desires love, but because without choice, love would be meaningless. This divine risk created the potential for suffering, but also for authentic connection that mechanical obedience could never achieve.
What sets this discussion apart is our exploration of how self-reliance becomes the greatest barrier to experiencing God's solution to suffering. Through powerful stories and biblical insights, we reveal how surrender and "death to self" become the pathway not just to salvation, but to freedom from evil's grip in our daily lives.
Rather than offering simplistic answers, we acknowledge the tension between intellectual understanding and lived experience. Yet we emphasize what makes Christianity unique: a God who entered our suffering rather than remaining distant from it. Jesus experienced human pain firsthand, transforming how we can face our own struggles with hope.
Whether you're wrestling with personal suffering or intellectual doubts about God's goodness, this episode offers perspective that honors both the mystery and meaning behind life's deepest questions. Join us as we explore how the gospel provides the ultimate answer to evil through the proving of love.
Blood & Oil Podcast is filmed and recorded by Pastor Jesse LaForce and Zane Wheeler in California, with Terrence Theodore on video call from the East Coast. A variety of guests will join us as we discuss modern events through a biblical lens, so buckle up and enjoy the ride. Thanks to all of our supporters, and Praise God for the opportunity to serve Him in this way. We hope you have enjoyed this episode and pray for blessings upon your day.
In a time when faith can feel flat, distracted and disengaged, the Blood and Oil podcast cuts through the noise to reveal the raw, unfiltered work of the Holy Spirit. Welcome to the Blood and Oil podcast.
Speaker 2:All right, welcome to Blood and Oil podcast. Amen, we're here again. Amen.
Speaker 3:Good to see everyone. God bless you. Thanks for listening, thanks for tuning in. So we were thinking and talking and texting back and forth today, one of the biggest questions that's asked out there pretty regularly and it's not an old, old question and lots of people who are struggling with the idea of a creator, god, um, uh, come to this. This, this quandary or this question at some point in time, and it's called theodicy. Is what it's called in in? Uh philosophy and apologetics and what it means is it?
Speaker 3:It's said differently. It's called the problem of evil. There's two different ways to look at it. The first is philosophical, which is if God is all good and God is all powerful, why does evil exist? Because if he's all good, then he shouldn't want evil, and if he's all powerful, then he has the ability to make sure that there's not evil. So either he's not all good, or he's not all powerful, or he doesn't exist, right?
Speaker 3:The second component is theological and the question is how? How can a good God let bad things happen to good people? Right, and that's the. That's actually a, a there's a presupposition in that. That's wrong, for instance, believing that how can a good God let bad things happen to good people. There's no such thing as a good person. Romans 3.23,. All have sinned, fallen short of the glory of God. We all, like sheep, have gone astray. So the and from the womb David says, I am a center created, came forth in iniquity. You know, the, these universal statements of the depravity of humanity, is that. That's the. The doctrinal statement is universal depravity, that everybody's depraved and so the.
Speaker 3:The question is if God is all good and God is all powerful, how then does evil exist? And theologians and thinkers have been thinking on this for ages. So this isn't new. This isn't something that's you know. Oh my gosh, everybody sell everything you got.
Speaker 3:Christianity is going up in flames. That's not the case at all. There are sound and sufficient answers to all of it. We'll go over some of that today, sure, but the funny thing thinking about it, though, is that you don't have these questions in other religious systems, right? So you don't have these questions in other religious systems, right? So, like you don't have the question in islam, you don't have the question in in uh buddhism, or in in uh hinduism, or any of the, the pagan systems that have a pantheon of deities, or this, that and the next. It's uniquely only the Christian God that this gets laid at his feet. And it's because of the claim of Christianity that God is sovereign, yeah, and that he's in control of everything. Right, because if he's not sovereign and he's not in control of everything, then the answer is why do bad things happen to good people? The answer is because God's not in control, which is not sufficient biblically.
Speaker 3:Or comforting Right. Why does Allah not get this question posed? And it's because he authors both good and evil, right, and he's beyond our moral concepts of either good or evil. And even in that system, you can be a perfect Muslim, stand in front of him and him say, nah, I don't like you today and you don't go to heaven with Allah. So you can be completely, 100%, perfect, obedient in Islam, stand in front of Allah and still not make it into heaven with Allah.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Because, he can be arbitrary and capricious. Okay, buddhism would seek to answer the question that they actually don't have a supreme deity. They have a system. There are supernatural beings in certain types of Buddhism, but ultimately there's not a one deity over everything. There are overlaps with Hinduism and Buddhism as far as identity factors go, like. There's samsara and these, these things that are parts of their systems, that the, the karmic wheel. You know that, yeah, kind of an idea, those, those things there's crossover. But I don't as far as I know of and you know, somebody can correct me buddhism does not have a supreme deity. Um, so the it you know, kind of doesn't apply. But so that's that's the question. The question is how does a, a good god, um, let bad things happen to good people?
Speaker 2:yeah, um, said succinctly you know, zoroastrianism has sort of a dualist perspective as well. You know, there's. There's a representation of evil there. I can't. I know ahura mazda is the main deity, but there's a nemesis in that. I can't remember his name, but, um, like a cosmic duality yeah yeah, so it's one of the first that we know of antiquity, that kind of brought, brought in sort of a dualist perspective of good versus evil, but still those questions aren't quite asked in that, in that perspective either. And what you're getting at?
Speaker 3:right because and correct me if I'm wrong in that system then the idea would be that there's these, these competing cosmic powers of equal power, right? Is that? Yeah, yeah, kind of the yin and yang idea exactly yeah yeah, that, yeah, it still wouldn't apply to that because totally it wasn't the good god who let it happen. Right, right, it was the the bad God, yeah.
Speaker 2:And the mere existence of a bad God that is equally as powerful as the good God.
Speaker 3:Right, yeah, and so the good God isn't in a position of all power where he could stop the bad God without some sort of a contest. Yeah Right, so there's no sovereignty. Right, right, parents any opening thoughts.
Speaker 4:Depending on the person's motives for why they're asking it whether they're asking it in anger towards God or like pride or something like this I may answer one way. Or if there's genuine concern and questioning as to severe suffering, things like this, I may answer in another way, more softer way. But I think the question is a good question for sure, and I think if you're wrestling with that question, by all means ask it. Jesus is not afraid of answers. So don't think that Christians, when we hear hard type questions, we're hiding. No, these questions exist, they're good and, depending on the motives you're asking, get the question in. We have answers.
Speaker 2:Right, right, yeah, the questions need to be asked. You know, that's the way it's really a demonstration of that of the gospel in a lot of ways is to thoroughly suss out anything that could. I mean. Apologetics is basically an argument. Right, it's basically a discussion. It's an entire sort of classification of an approach that a Christian might take in order to defend the faith, if need be, is to engage in a dialectic like that. That needs to be available. It needs to be available for the faith to essentially prosper in the world, because if folks want to poke holes in it and then try to and there's no one there to actually defend the faith or to answer those questions, then those holes are just there.
Speaker 3:And you know I would be careful to. You know, I used to think that apologetics was, as one of the people who discipled me said, apologetics is the handmaiden of evangelism.
Speaker 3:Is what he said and I believed that for a long time because I thought, you know, if you could reasonably logic, somebody that you know you could sit down and logically argue how God must exist. Yeah, in order, if everything has cause and effect, at some point in the line you have to have a first cause-cause, or you just have an infinite regression of cause and effect, right, so it makes no sense for there not to be an uncaused cause. Yeah, right, there must be, logically speaking, and for me, in my mind, that seals the deal. And the argument for a creator, right, but not everybody's like that, Sure. And so I used to think that if you presented a reasonable presentation that was sound and based on good philosophy and didn't have false logic in it and this kind of stuff, that I used to think that that that was sufficient.
Speaker 3:And in my reading of the scripture, like first Corinthians, chapter two, paul is clear. He's like I did not come to you with persuasive words or remission, right, I came to you with the demonstration of the Spirit by power. For this reason, what does he say? So that your faith would not rest on the wisdom?
Speaker 3:of men, but on the power of God Right, and so I came to realize that apologetics is good. 1 Peter 3 is the passage that talks about apologetics.
Speaker 4:Always be ready.
Speaker 3:Apologia is being ready to give an answer for anyone who asks of you Okay.
Speaker 3:But then in reading the passage, you realize his reason for giving the answer is not to get somebody saved Right. His reason for giving the answer is so that your opponent, who tries to say that you're dumb, is put to shame. Sure. And so the real reason for apologetics is not to try to get somebody saved Right, it's to show that you're not a dummy and that your position is perfectly reasonable, whether they get converted or not. That's not to say that God doesn't use apologetics. It's not to say that God doesn't use reason, he. It's not to say that God doesn't use reason, he uses all of that. But at the end of the day, if there's not an encounter with the personal work of Jesus by which somebody is born again yes, that supernatural moment of being born again, it doesn't matter how many reasonable arguments you give them. If you can reason somebody into the faith, then you can reason them out of the faith.
Speaker 3:That's very true, whatever you win somebody by, you keep them by, and so once something isn't reasonable to them, they'll leave, and, as is typical especially in our society, that is grooming. The self-centeredness of the feelings, yeah, how I feel is what matters most. This idea of your truth, my truth, their truth, all truth is relative. Well, that's great, you know, jesse. Jesus rose from the dead. That's your truth, but that's not my truth. That grooming of that subjective sense of truth is only determined by what you feel individually. That that thing has developed a danger where, even if something isn't reasonable, if they feel like it's reasonable, they'll abandon reason for what feels reasonable.
Speaker 2:And that gets into moral relativism and all kinds of stuff. Yeah, I'm sure that's a slippery slope, yeah, and we see that a lot in moral relativism and all kinds of stuff.
Speaker 3:Yeah, for sure that's a slippery slope, yeah.
Speaker 2:And we see that a lot in the woke culture and all of that too, for sure. I am who I believe I am. I am who I feel I am. That's right, yeah, and a debate is exactly that. It's going to be two parties that are probably more so entrenched in the view that they started with by the time the debate's over anyway, so it's not going to necessarily lead to salvation anyway. Right, you want to have someone come to salvation through revelation of the Lord instead of logic, right?
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, that makes sense and reason can lead to that. Yeah, that's not abnormal or out of the question. But if that doesn't lead to an actual, substantial encounter with the personal work of Christ by the personal work of the Holy Spirit, you've got nothing.
Speaker 2:Amen, amen, I like it you must be converted.
Speaker 3:Sure and Pastor Steve's story. I don't know if I've shared it here before or not, maybe I have, but he's. Him and a guy he's with are doing worship overseas at a huge conference. Steve's leading and he gets out and he's super tired and they get into a cab with a cabbie and I may botch this, so if someone listens to it and knows better, please correct me, it's fine. They get into the car and I think the cabbie's probably Muslim because he wants to debate the Trinity. Okay, yeah, and he starts talking about how can God be triune, how can da-da-da-da-da-da? And he knows that they're getting out of a Christian conference and Pastor Steve is tired. He just says stop, stop. He says first I'm going to pray and then I'm going to sing, and then he's going to enter the car and you can ask him there, you go, go to the source. He prays and he sings and, as you know, whenever Pastor Steve enters into music, jesus shows up. Oh yeah, he's got that covenant place with God, he's got the heart of worship.
Speaker 2:That's right.
Speaker 3:If you promise to only sing for me, I'll show up every time you do, when you sing for me.
Speaker 1:If you promise to only sing for me.
Speaker 3:I'll show up every time you do, when you sing for me and he's like deal, so he sings the Lord, enters into the car and then he falls asleep, steve, yeah. And the dude, full-blown, gets a revelation from God and starts repenting and recanting the bad doctrine. Amen.
Speaker 2:Oh, my gosh, the 301.
Speaker 3:They can't do it, wow, because of an encounter with the person uh-huh, yeah, yeah, the person amen and uh, and then I I guess when they, when he dropped them off, they spent hours led him to jesus and all this other stuff. But it, there, there was another man. His name uh was k k lim, from indonesia, and he said this about 14 years ago I don't care how many letters you have after your name if you can't get it from heaven. My PhD, thm, mdiv, dmint, whatever, etc. And I was like, because I had put a premium on education, god has blessed me to have a brain. And so I was like, because I had put a premium on education, god has blessed me to have a brain. And so I was like, all right, I'm going to get my master's and I'm going to get my PhD.
Speaker 3:And I'm going to go that direction, and so that was primary in my life as far as thinking that that's what I need to do to fulfill God's call in my life is due with my intellect, the right thing Right and use it to serve Him. And so I had put a premium on education. And then he said that and I was like, dude, he's not wrong, mm-hmm, right. And then the guy we're going to interview next month, ryan Skoug the interview I sent you guys, where he goes the reason why the West is not experiencing the revival that the rest of the globe is experiencing in Christianity is because most of the leaders in the West don't pray. Wow. And there's a direct correlation between the level of your education and your prayerlessness. Wow, where the more education you have, the less you your prayerlessness. Wow, where the more you, the more education you have, the less you tend to pray. Sure.
Speaker 2:Sadly, the less education.
Speaker 3:You have the more you tend to pray. And you've got these, these dudes in the middle of nowhere whom God has said I want you to pastor, and they've got zero theological education, but they pray and they connect with God every day and miracle signs and wonders are happening and people are getting saved.
Speaker 2:Right, because they're desperate and they need to rely on the Lord 100%. Yeah, that's the key.
Speaker 3:And what he's not saying, right, big letters over my head. Jesse's not saying education is bad. Right, I'm working on my master's degree right now, totally. Okay, right, working on my master's degree right now, totally yeah, right. So not what I'm saying. What I am saying is that we tend to put this premium on data and information over substance. Yes, and biblically, what did Acts say about Peter and John? They were unlearned fishermen who were known because the Pharisees They'd been with Jesus. That's right. They noted they had obviously spent time with Christ, right yeah?
Speaker 2:Yeah, amen, amen, amen. And meeting different people and having the gospel in my heart and wanting to speak that and interacting with folks and talking about my life with Jesus. The folks that I meet, that are educated, that have started businesses, that are successful, that are living in the world and for the world yeah, they'll hear about it, but they're not going to necessarily go running and give their heart to Jesus. You know what I mean? Because they're relying on self. Yes, and they've put so much blood, sweat and tears into the reliance on self. They've spent so many hours toiling on the reliance of self and building that reliance. It's an idol, you know.
Speaker 4:It is.
Speaker 2:And so why would they smash the idol? You know that they've worked so hard to build, yeah, and mold out of you know the gold of self. You know and and and, and, and, and, just to smash it to. You know to, to, to look to another source Like they'd have. It feels like they have to reset or restart or something like that. You know what I'm saying. So it's, it's a battle. You know I can. It's definitely an idol, though.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's one of the reasons why it's. It's not atypical, but it's typical that when somebody who's self-made or, especially in the West, like people, don't come to Jesus unless there's a crisis, yep, and they come to like to your conversion, I don't have the power to deal with this entity. That's right, and so now I'm in a crisis where my self-management, my self-discipline, my education, my dollar.
Speaker 2:Value that I make it work.
Speaker 3:My family, my history, none of that's going to work. Why, it's typically said there's no atheists in foxholes. Why?
Speaker 2:Because you are in it, about to die. You've got to try everything that might work. Yep, why?
Speaker 3:so many people find religion in prison? Yep. Or why does 12 steps work so much? You're at the end of yourself. You must find something outside of self-reliance in order to make this thing work. Yep, yeah. So this Western sense of individualism, this fierce sense of individualism, has bred in us, in one sense, fantastic things, but then, in another sense, absolutely terrible things. Mm-hmm.
Speaker 4:Everyone self-reliance.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yep, yeah.
Speaker 3:So, and you know, for the opposite end end, like having a power encounter with god doesn't necessarily solve the equation either. Right, like you know, we know people personally recently who had very significant encounters with god and have turned around and walked away um, you know the the 10 lepers are healed, only one of them is saved right.
Speaker 3:Only one of them turns back and says no, I want to be right with god. Yep, you know, I'm gonna come back and I'm gonna say thank you. And jesus is like we're in through 10. Where are the other nine? Is the only one found to give thanks to? To god, this samaritan, like not even the dude who was supposed to. Yeah, yeah, yeah, right. And then he says this Depending on your translation, it may say your faith has made you well, but the Greek is your faith has saved you.
Speaker 2:Mm-hmm Right.
Speaker 3:And the very first sermon I preached in a church that's what I preached on is that we could have a power encounter with God and walk away, not even saved.
Speaker 1:Mm-hmm, and so what's the?
Speaker 3:math. The power encounter can't just be a power encounter. It must be an encounter with the substance of the person Jesus has to be, Because you can get a power encounter and not be born again. You can get a reasonable logical conversion and not be converted Right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you can have a healing. You can have, yeah, absolutely An encounter with the Holy Spirit himself and not walk away from that security and salvation.
Speaker 3:Or overly, like we. You know, we had a person who, you know, last two years had an encounter with the Holy Spirit, didn't want to give up the particular lifestyle that they had and felt like because they had an encounter with the Holy Spirit. They were born again and we're telling them you're not born again if you're not willing to give up the lifestyle that God said is not okay with Him. Right, just because you had some encounter while watching stuff about near-death experiences and now you're aware of the supernatural realm and the afterlife and, oh my gosh, jesus is real, right.
Speaker 3:If that doesn't cause you to abandon your sinful lifestyle. All you've had is a feeling.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was sharing my testimony earlier. I was telling you, and my friend who was listening asked well, what does it mean to trade life for life? I said well, his desires became mine, amen, wow, my desires ended that day.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Right, what he wants for me and has wanted for me but now gets to place in me. I allowed him to you know what I mean and we traded that and it's really the desires, it's really the motivations, it's really the ways I walk in the world now are his through me, you know that's right, I die, he rises that's right.
Speaker 2:that's right and that made sense to me saying it, because I never really explained it that way. I was like, oh, that that makes a lot of sense. Okay, cool, I'm going to use that one next time I give my testimony, because I think it makes sense to a worldly person. They're like how can you trade life with a spiritual being?
Speaker 1:You know what I mean.
Speaker 2:It's like he's not alive. Well, he's definitely alive. A but B. I'm living my life in this world. I got to live for him and by his rules and by what he wants for me. Basically yes.
Speaker 3:Yeah, his life becomes my life. Yes, yeah.
Speaker 2:Amen.
Speaker 3:Terrence. What about you? You got stuff on apologetics you want to share.
Speaker 4:Yeah, before I go there, though, I want to kind of touch on something Zane just said, and I think it was apropos to what I'm going to say. I'll tell a story really quick. This occurred when I first became Savior. It was the first story I heard and I'm not entirely sure how historically true it is, but I think, again, it fits so well with what Zane just said about life for life. So the story was told about a slave auction that was going on and there was a missionary who happened to just walk by seeing the auction occur and he became discontented with what he saw. His heart became upset and he was watching these people auction off these people as if they were cattle and animals. Has anybody paid for a slave ever? Just give him to me, right, just let him go. And the guy was like are you kidding me? That's a lot of money, twice as much. I've never heard anybody say anything like this. Are you sure? He says yes, I'm sure. Give me the guy.
Speaker 4:Long story short, he brings the guy out in chains. Now the slave doesn't know what's going on. He just sees another man in front of him, assuming he's going to be sold. So he spits on the guy who's buying his freedom. Guy simply takes his shirt, wipes his mouth and he proceeds to unlock the chains and he walks the slave down the street. Now the slave doesn't know what's going on and he stops at a shop and he's told the slave to just wait out there and he's arguing with the shopkeep and he's saying you must, you must give me these papers.
Speaker 4:Long story short, the guy comes back out with these papers and he hands it to the slave. He says these are your emancipation papers. I bought this to set you free. And the slave's not understanding. So he spits on him again. Right?
Speaker 4:Guy simply takes his hands and he wipes his face again and he's looking at the slave and he says you don't understand. Listen, I bought this to set you free. And he keeps repeating himself and the slave's still not understanding. He's arguing with him and then finally, you know, he starts to sink in and so he's realizing this guy's telling the truth. He can't understand what's going on exactly, but he sees something crazy in his perspective is happening here and he starts repeating himself. He says you bought this to set me free. And the guy's like yes, I bought this. I paid twice as much to set you free. He's like here's your papers, go please. And long story short. After crying, the slave said this and this is what kind of Zane just reminded me. The slave said this you bought me to set me free. And this is what kind of Zane just reminded me. The slave said this you bought me to set me free, sir all I want to be in this life is your slave.
Speaker 4:Wow, that's the Christian story, and I fast forward that story for the sake of time. But again, zane, you hit it right on the head bud. That's every Christian, I don't care what country you're from, how old you are, how much your economic background is, whatever the case may be. That makes us distinct. That's every Christian's heart. We want to be Jesus's slave because he has set us free from a price that we ourselves saw that we owe and that we couldn't pay. And now that's our life. We want to trade our old life for shackles so that we might be slaves to him.
Speaker 2:Yeah, amen so that we might be slaves to him.
Speaker 3:Yeah, amen, yeah, I think it's been said. Like people, they have this bad idea of what they think freedom means. They think freedom means you can do whatever you want Right, but freedom in Christ doesn't mean you can do whatever you want. Freedom in Christ means you can do what you were created to do.
Speaker 1:Amen.
Speaker 3:Because you're unable to do what you're created to do before you come to christ without him. Amen, when you come to christ now, you are free to do what it is that he's created to do to do, which is isaiah 43, 7 to glorify him right yes, you want to right and, and that is our chief joy, that is the the chief end of man to glor, glorify God and enjoy Him forever.
Speaker 3:So you know, john Piper, in the Confessions Westminster's, whatever it is the Confession, you know, the chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. And Piper says actually it's to glorify God by enjoying Him forever, and I'm like yes, absolutely.
Speaker 3:I preached on this yesterday Like there is something inside of us that comes alive when we stand on the edge of the grand Canyon. Right, there's something inside of us like out here in the Sonoma coast you go out for the sunset over the ocean and how picturesque and the beauty and the colors are you. You look up the coast and you see the, the majesty of these rock formations and the strength of the waves and the sound of the ocean and all of these things and in that moment the last thing I care about is my bills.
Speaker 3:Yeah, the last thing I care about is my conflict with my wife.
Speaker 4:Right.
Speaker 3:My conflict with my kids? Yeah, whatever, why? Because I'm being drawn out of myself, right, I am made to see glorious things and be absolutely taken by them, sure, and when I do that, I am the most free, and it has nothing to do with what's happening right here. Right amen, absolutely amen nothing to do, and so. So true freedom in christ is not hey, I'm free now. Now I can go and have sex with as many people as I want, or now.
Speaker 3:I can go and sleep with as many people as I want. Or let's go a little bit more subtle Ready Now I can go and put a Christian tag on all of my own plans for my own kingdom and feel like I'm good with God. That's not what it's for Right Right Say that that's not what it's for Right Right Say that that's good, it's not what it's for. It's for I am set free, so that I can do what I was created to do Do his will. Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it brings up I mean, it really highlights this juxtaposition between the physical and the spiritual and how these spiritual concepts that we're relating, they don't make sense when you're coming at it from a physical perspective, like why would I want to be a slave? You know, slavery a lot of people would call evil, which brings us back to the theme for today. Right, it's just the opposite here, right, but what we're talking about with the theodicy, that's a real evil that exists. Right, and this is kind of what we're getting at today. Right, there is a how would you describe it? Theodicy? Yeah, how would you describe how evil is explained in a Christian context? I can probably answer some of that, but I'd like you to as well starts with with god's purpose in creation.
Speaker 3:Okay, um, because he, he, he creates all things, and even isaiah says that he creates both calamity and good, okay, good and evil.
Speaker 3:And so there is a sense in which god is sovereign over all things and nothing happens without his approval or without his permission. And you know, we talked about last week the difference between his perfect will and his permissive will, where he allows things that he doesn't necessarily want to happen, but he allows them because of the greater plan that he has. And so what is the context of evil is always going to be bibl, the proving of love this is the reason why it exists.
Speaker 3:Wow, god, says I. I, the god's done everything he's done for the sake of relationship. He wants to share himself, like the, the fact that we are going to share a throne with him. To he who overcomes, I will allow him to sit in my throne, even as I overcame and sat with my father.
Speaker 3:Which is wild, wow, crazy, right, like I know me. So this idea that God wants to share himself. Well, how does an uncreated being share the depths of himself? Who's uncreated with something that's created? Right, how do you do that? There are obvious, there are automatically. There's some sort of a block, because I cannot make a created thing uncreated. One of the problems in philosophy is that we can conceive of word problems that are not logical. So I'll give you an example If God is all-powerful, can he create a rock he can't lift? Right? That is a word problem that I can come up with and an idea problem that I can conceive of, but it's illogical.
Speaker 4:Right, yeah, nonsensical for sure, right Right.
Speaker 3:And so God can do everything. But there is no contradiction in God. No sign Make sense.
Speaker 4:Absolutely Yep, yep, yep.
Speaker 3:Yep. So what does he do? Absolutely Okay, Yep. So what does he do? How can the uncreated God share himself in the most intimate possible way that he can with created beings? How does he do that? The incarnation, and so that sets up the whole thing that God is doing. Right, everything is done for the sake of relationship, okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:What's the most meaningful relationship then? If I can't share the, the, the ultimate expression of myself in uncreatedness, or in my ontology, or in my being, if I can't share that, then how? How do I share the deepest parts of myself? And the answer is love, right, yeah, father, son and the Spirit have eternal love, reciprocal between each other, got it? Yeah, okay, because love requires an object, right, so they have this relationship that they have, that they're going to invite us into. We can't be uncreated. So then how do we share with him in the depths of who he is? Love, okay. Well, how does he get us to love?
Speaker 3:have to give them the ability to pick yes choice, have to have the ability to choose, have to have a will and the freedom to use that will amongst options. True, okay, otherwise love is not genuine. Might as well make some robots, might as well, might as well, you know, make some robots and and computer program them with obligations, right, well, then you're not sharing love, right? Okay, that sets up this potential for choice, sets up, now, the ability or the potential to choose wrong, right, right, well, love must also be proven, mm-hmm, right. So the snake didn't get into the garden without God knowing God created the devil, knowing full well that the devil would be disloyal and abandon him. Sure, sure, all for the sake of proving love, right, yep, god's servant.
Speaker 4:And the final analysis yes, that's right. Yeah, we talked about that last time Nebuchadnezzar, all's servant and the final analysis.
Speaker 2:yes, that's right. Yeah, we talked about that last time. Nebuchadnezzar, all of these figures through the Bible too, that do wrong and, from a worldly perspective, we're being used by the Lord, right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, even then.
Speaker 3:Yeah he's over all of it. The analogy is, if you've ever seen a tapestry, it's essentially thread or yarn, and, for those who don't know, it's a picture, but it's made with needles and thread and yarn. Right, it's a picture, but it's made with needles and thread and yarn, right. And so when you look on the back of the tapestry, it looks like somebody just threw a bunch of paint on the back and there's no rhyme or reason, right, because the needle comes through this way and then loops over to this side and then comes through this way and then loops over to this side. It's just a mess and it looks like multicolored spaghetti. Yeah, right.
Speaker 3:Okay multicolored spaghetti. Yeah, right, okay. But then, when you turn the tapestry around, there's this beautiful, ordered, purposeful image amen and that's. That's kind of like what we see happening right now yeah, where there are a lot of things that don't make sense to us. Why did the child get raped? Why?
Speaker 1:did the kid die?
Speaker 3:Why did the what happens to the kid 3,500 years ago who never heard about Jesus? Yeah right, does he go to hell? Like? All of these questions are all covered under. How can a good God let bad things happen? And the answer is he wants to share himself. He's proving love and, in the final analysis, everything having happened is better having happened than if it had never happened, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, well said, absolutely.
Speaker 4:To your point, it's tested.
Speaker 3:That's right. How does a good God let bad things happen to people? Or, if God is all good and God is all powerful, why does evil exist? Okay, you want him to fix the problem of evil? We're all gone like that Like. Thanos.
Speaker 2:Yeah right, Good analogy. You want a Thanos Mm-hmm.
Speaker 3:Nobody in their right mind wants a thanos, sure, so you would rather not exist. No, that's not acceptable either. Oftentimes they back into that place because they, they just want to. They, they want to feel like they've got a reason to reject god right and that's, and that's just theodicy too, the debate that's been circulating for centuries
Speaker 2:is that versus evil is just an absence of good Right. Okay, and you know I'm well-versed in Jung. I've talked about it a lot. I just used to study psychology all the time. I loved it. There's a lot of truth that's being shared there. However his view on it was, you know, there's a part of us that represents God. There's an archetype within our collective unconscious that represents God. There's also parts of us that are evil and we have to contend with that right. Humanity contains light and dark, right, and you know, I think, which is exemplified in, you know, maybe, the prodigal son, right. And you know, I think, which is exemplified in, you know, maybe the prodigal son right, going out into the world, experiencing these things, coming back as an overcomer, right, sort of slaying these dragons within himself, right. So there's some truth to that, of course. But his question was always well, where does this evil come from? Well, it's within us as well.
Speaker 1:You know, so it is a very real thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it is a very real thing. And so, even before I came to the Lord, I said, yeah, evil's real, I knew it. But what's interesting is what you mentioned a little while ago about me coming to the Lord because out of necessity, because I was in such spiritual darkness. That's what I really realized that evil was real. I was dancing around it, I was entertaining it, I was flirting with the idea that evil was real, but I didn't want to accept it Because my God at that time in the New Age was Source. And what's Source? How do I connect with Source? Plug into the wall, exactly. There's no son that was sent, that was slain for my sins and resurrected and that I can connect with, who's alive and well now, who I can commune with now. There's none of that. And so here I am in this sort of nebulous space of, yeah, I believe in source, astral soup, yeah, exactly. So it was terrifying to think that evil could be a true thing. A real thing because I actually had no defense against it.
Speaker 3:Right, yeah, no, and that's true, the biblical. So the answer. Dr Michael Heiser is the one who posited this the first time I heard it, so I'll give him proper shout out. He's passed, so God rest in peace. He's listening from heaven, so well done.
Speaker 1:Dr Heiser.
Speaker 3:If you were to ask a first century Jew or a first century Christian why the world is the way it is, they would give you a different answer than a present-day christian who would say genesis, chapter three which is the devil in the fall, right.
Speaker 3:That's only a part of the picture. You've got this larger scope of several different rebellions in which there is this cosmic battle that is happening, right, and so it's not just Genesis 3, it's Genesis 1. How is the earth formless and void when Isaiah says God didn't create it? Formless and void, right. How is it tohu wabuhu when in Isaiah it's not tohu wabuhu? It is so something happened, yeah. How is the devil fallen before genesis 3, right? Okay. Genesis 6 the the sons of god come and lay with the daughters of men. Genesis 11 the the uh uh tower of babel and yeah nimrod or, you know, gilgamesh the gilgamesh figure becomes a gibbereme.
Speaker 3:These ideas of this regular cosmic battle that's happening and the entire thing centers on God. Before creation even happens, the Father and the Son agree that they are going to create this whole thing for the sake of sharing themselves and proving love. Right, the whole thing, right.
Speaker 2:Right. So this tension between good and evil is illustrated throughout the Bible, throughout many, many cultures talking about this battle that's happening right and the tension I believe obviously is necessary, you're saying, because there's two choices. God wants us to choose him. It's interesting when I think about the expression of evil in the physical and how it's carried through history, as man's carrying it through, because Satan's a spiritual entity, right, and you know there are people that talk about him manifesting and becoming, you know, coming into physical form, those kinds of things. There are also visions of him in hell, those kinds of things. You get testimonies from different Christians and things like this. However, evil has really been perpetuated by man.
Speaker 3:But it's only been conceived of as only man recently.
Speaker 2:That's okay. This is a good thing to get into. I like it. I like it.
Speaker 3:So that's Johnny. Come lately with the enlightenment era, yeah, Rationalism, yeah, yeah rationalism?
Speaker 3:Yeah for sure. Before that. And even today, non-western countries, they still believe in evil spirits. Yeah, they still engage ancestral spirits. They still worship these things and go to other ones because that one's more powerful than that one, and I don't like that one. It's treating me bad now, so I'm going to go to other ones because that one's more powerful than that one and and I don't like that one, it's treating me bad now. So I'm going to go to the next one and, like they, they still conceive of it in those ways. And these non-western cultures still go to these people to curse their enemy. Yep right, which is absolutely spiritual, absolutely. Here's the witch doctor, here's a, you know, here's a chicken in a hundred gold pieces.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Curse my neighbor's crops. I think that's the crux of the issue.
Speaker 4:to be fair, I think that that whole Ephesians we wrestle not against flesh and blood right, there's that reality, but I think, to go back to the human aspect, I think that's what makes Christianity unique amongst other religions. Here's what I mean specifically In Christianity, the issue is not so much evil out there, because when you're lost, you sort of think about evil like that, you think about Hitler, other bad people you could name, right. You never think of yourself, though, right.
Speaker 4:I think, of two things a secular person and then Jesus. Jesus is the better example. I'll start with the first, one of my favorite writers, gk Chesterton, who was before CS Lewis. He said this he was inducted into Time Magazine contest to answer this question what is wrong with the world? His answer, very short, very pithy. He said, dear sirs, in regards to your question, what is wrong with the world? I am yours truly, gk Chesterton. And what?
Speaker 1:he was trying to say was.
Speaker 4:The world doesn't have a war problem, a food problem, a shortage problem. I'm real strong with the world. And Jesus says the same thing. He says the world hates me because I testify that their deeds, their deeds, are evil. He looks at his own disciples. He says if you, being evil, can give good, well, just slap right there. He called them evil. There's no one good in another place. He said so that's the Christian worldview there, right and so. That's one of the reasons why the gospel is offensive, because we're not saying there, right and so. That's one of the reasons why the gospel is offensive, because we're not saying hey, there's this duality whereby you have both good and evil. According to Jesus, from God's perspective, you have no good. You've lived your days from waking up in the morning to going to sleep at night and back and on and on and rebellion to the.
Speaker 4:Lord, you are evil. There's nothing you can do to save yourself. And so to go back to the question, right, the theodicy question. I think Jess gave a great answer.
Speaker 4:In regards to the positive answer, I always like to answer from the negative view because most people are asking it from a motivation to prove you wrong doesn't get rid of evil. And I said well, you should be thankful because you would be in hell right now. You see, god is patient towards us, to quote a verse, not willing that any would suffer, or not willing that any would be lost, but rather that they would turn to repentance, quoting 2 Peter 3.9. There. And that's the same view that God had in the Old Testament. He said it this way why would you die? Why would you not just repent? I'm paraphrasing and so the Christian worldview says, in regards to the question, the theodicy question, don't so much ask it from a view as if you're innocent and you have reason to ask this and answer back to God. You're the problem and you should be very much thankful that God is patient with sinners, willing that you should repent, because you would be in hell right now.
Speaker 2:Right, there you go.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and there's something that's built into this more secular perspective, which is that we contain both good and evil, like you were saying, and because of that, now the battle is within us, not existing in the second heaven or the spiritual realm that we get to participate in when we're grafted into the kingdom, those kinds of things, but it's existing within us. So if only we could develop ourself and deify ourself eventually and become the conqueror of that evil within us, then we've won right. That's what they think.
Speaker 3:That's exactly what they think.
Speaker 2:And boy, what a trap 100%.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, and I think the holistic view of looking at the warfare of the Christian life to Terrence's point is you've got three fronts. You've got the world, the flesh and the enemy, and the biggest one that I. If you're a Christian, the biggest enemy that you have is the flesh. The enemy himself can only take advantage and opportunity with you as much as he can get your flesh provoked. There it is. So the, that's right the. You know I think I've shared the story before. There it is your spouse needs sanctification.
Speaker 1:That's what your spouse needs.
Speaker 3:Even if there's a demonic presence that's involved in stimulating or inciting or infuriating, or that has got access somehow to the ears and the influence to the heart. The math is not cut off the demonic influence. The math is crucify the heart Right, because once the heart is crucified, the influence has nowhere to land. Right, which is Jesus' point. The evil one comes and he finds nothing in me. Right, there you go the idea of mortification of self or death to self. Not only is it the way in which I am united with Christ. Deny yourself, take up your cross, follow me.
Speaker 3:Paul says I die daily. Those who are the Lord's have crucified the flesh and its desires, put to death the deeds of the body by how? Romans 8, the Holy Spirit. So not only is death to self the way in which I find union with Jesus regularly, death to self is also the way in which the devil has no hold on me. Right, yeah, from the world, no, draw from the world, no lullaby from the world, no call or hue or cry or any of that finds any purchase inside of me when I'm dead.
Speaker 3:The idea of what happens if you walk porn around the feet of a dead man? Nothing why, he's dead. What you? If you walk a gram of cocaine around a dead man? Nothing same, he's dead, right, if you are dead. There's no place for any of that to land right and so so that that's the nature of the battle is the.
Speaker 3:It's the world and the enemy. It's three fronts, and we start with proficiency in putting self to death. Rule your house, rule your spirit. Rule your house, rule the enemy. So I am able to rule self and then I rule what God has given me and then I'm able to rule outward over the math, on whatever it is that is giving you influence. That's happening.
Speaker 2:Yeah, beautiful, beautiful. Yeah, that's one of the that's in a lot of ways, it's an initiation. Right Is the cross and I think, because it does it, it it, like you said, there's no ground for the, for the enemy, to set up strongholds inside of you. Yeah, right, which is the beginning of idolatry and all of the things that would take you away from the Lord. Right, and at that point, when there's idolatry involved, that's when you're choosing the other 100%, yeah, yeah, so the choice comes back. The choice is always available. Yeah, it never goes away.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you, it's always available. Yeah, it never goes away.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You know you come to Jesus and now you don't have a choice to go back to the enemy. No, it's still there, right, it's always there. But now you're equipped with how. You know how you can live a better life. You know walking in the will of the Lord for sure. That's right Death to self. Yep, I like it to theodicy.
Speaker 3:the answer is that God is working all things together for an end and, ultimately, in proving love, what happens? So why will, in order for love to be genuine, why does proving love matter? When I pick my spouse, I am automatically exalting her above any other choice I could have. And if all I had was one woman to pick from, if I did not have options to pick from, her worth and value is not exalted as higher than the options. Her worth and value is not exalted as higher than the outside Right. Okay, so not only God gives us a will so that we can love freely, to pick freely, but then that must be proven.
Speaker 2:Yes, right.
Speaker 3:Why are you Song of Solomon more beautiful than the 5,000? That's great. Why are you or you know, whatever the phraseology is Right that one is worth more to me than the option,000. That's great. Why are you or whatever the phraseology is Right that one is worth more to me than the option Okay? Okay, in that zone, god is not just proving our love, he's also proving His why. Greater love is no man than this. Lay down His life for His friends, love it. So, in the final analysis, everyone wants to be like love, love, love, love, love, love, love. It's all about love, absolutely yeah.
Speaker 1:Genuine, real love.
Speaker 3:Faith, hope and love, for the greatest of these is love, yep 1. Corinthians 13. Absolutely, but God's love is not like our love. God's love is eternal and powerful and strong in in his love.
Speaker 3:He is also 100, just right, yes, and so yes, there is judgment there there is absolutely judgment, but there is also grace, right, and so in that play there is this he who is forgiven much loves much. Amen, luke, chapter 7. Right, so in everything that's happening, god is proving who it is that loves him he himself in his own love and devotion, and what it is that that is the. The greatest act of love that can ever happen is the, the death and resurrection of jesus. Yes, amen.
Speaker 3:On behalf of sinners, come on to make them righteous love. It win them back to god, and so, whatever a person's they they may not be satisfied with that answer. Okay, you don't have to be satisfied with that answer. Okay, you don't have to be satisfied with that answer. God is doing everything he has done for the sake of relationship and for the sake of proving love. You don't have to be satisfied with that answer. Okay, you can pick to reject God still, but understand when you stand in front of him on the final day and he's justified in everything that he's done. You are now going to have to come to terms with that.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 3:Yes, yep.
Speaker 2:Yep. That's what I'm talking about.
Speaker 4:In the final analysis, no one's going to have an argument against him In fact, the people to your point when you quoted that verse, with the woman with the alabaster basket. No one's going to be in heaven saying I want my own will. No one's going to rebel like Satan did in the beginning. Everyone's going to see history and say this is what our desires cost us, this is what our freedom and autonomy cost us. And they're not so much going to be thinking about the temporal things, like the atrocities that occurred in slavery, sicknesses etc. Which is all bad for sure. They're going to be thinking and seeing Jesus for who he is, that he left His throne, became flesh and died for sinners. That's going to be magnanimous and I have no words to describe it. I can't even think of a word to say it now. But beyond words, it's going to shut us up. There will be no one to bring a charge against God.
Speaker 3:No, everyone will cover their mouth, just like Joe. Everyone will cover their mouth and say I've seen you.
Speaker 1:I've seen you. You know where I'm going bro.
Speaker 4:I love how you track with me. Yes, I've heard about you through the hearing of words. I've heard about you in history. I've heard about you in evangelism through your gospel. Now I see. And I have nothing to say except I love you, thank you.
Speaker 3:I cover my mouth and I repent and I retract in dust and sackcloth.
Speaker 4:And we see through a glass.
Speaker 3:Dumb Sorry.
Speaker 4:As the scripture says, we see through a darkened glass now. So Christians, to some degree, can see a pinpoint vision of what is going to occur in its fullness, but that's primarily what we're going to see. Yeah, everything from his perspective, and we're going to be in awe.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, a hundred percent, and and everyone will have immediate clarity and see everything as it is, as it should be.
Speaker 3:No one will be able to bring an accusation against him. Sure, and even those who go to hell will will have to concede no, you're right, you're right, you're good. Still actually right. Yes, which is crazy right, because revelation talks about those who are tormented in the presence of the lamb. So the there, when we talk about um god's on um, uh, omnipresence, he's like I'm there in heaven, I'm there in hell. Now he is there. Different in each of those places. There's a difference between the favorable presence of God, or the active presence of God, and the passive presence of God, or the omnipresence presence of God. There are ways in which he is present, specially ways in which he is always present, no matter what, and the idea that tormented forever in the lake of fire and the presence of the lamb and his angels is terrifying, absolutely.
Speaker 3:Or the very one that, for one instance, pastor Chuck used to put it this way. He'd say imagine what more hellish eternity there could be knowing that you could have had Christ and an eternity with him. And you will never have it Right and Pastor Steve put it this way You'll see him for a moment, and for a moment, everything inside of you will go oh my gosh, that's everything I ever wanted, right, he's every, he is. Oh my goodness, I was made for this. And he's the one, and, and, and, then the revel, everything's true, what the, and, then it's ripped away from you yep, yep, by your own doing too horrible yeah, that's the punishment, forever, yeah, by your own doing too.
Speaker 4:Horrible. That's the punishment. Yeah, by your own doing. By your own doing, yeah.
Speaker 2:That's right, yep Right. So the presence of evil serves a really important function.
Speaker 3:It does. It serves to prove love.
Speaker 4:It's the juxtaposition of the bad parts to show the good parts.
Speaker 2:That's right, exactly.
Speaker 3:It's the contrast of what does. Paul Was bad parts to show the good parts. That's right, exactly. It's the uh, the contrast of uh, what is? Paul washer say says like the stars are out there right now. Look up in the sky, the stars are out there right now, but it's not until the dark, and that you see the points of light, right, right, right. And so this if there's no contrast, there's no, never knowing the difference between them and then the specialness of one over another is never a thing, so all of it is.
Speaker 3:in the end, I believe, everyone who can be saved will be saved.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:That's where I sit presently be saved. That's where I sit presently, and I believe that God knows everyone who will say yes to Him, and His first move is the covenant between the Father and the Son1. Peter and Romans say that salvation is based on foreknowledge. A lot of my Calvinist friends would be like that would make their hair bristle.
Speaker 3:The reason why is because it seems that if God foreknows something about you, then who gets the credit for your salvation you do. That's not wrong logic. That is a problem, because the scriptures are very clear Salvation is not of man, right? We do not get the credit for our salvation, right? So how do you solve that salvation, that predestination? God picking you is based on his foreknowledge. The only way that you can solve that biblically is it's based on your response to his first move, because if he moves first, he gets the credit. If he reaches first, he gets the credit.
Speaker 3:What is the first thing and this is the finer point that a lot of my Reformed brethren are aware of the infralapsarian, the sublapsarian, the lapsarianism, these doctrines which talk about what is the order of decisions that are made within the Godhead before creation. Okay, Okay, If the order, and perfectly acceptable within orthodoxy and even in reform circles. If the order is the Father and the Son pick. No, we're going to create. And before they start thinking of individuals, here's the plan, here's the broad plan we're going to share ourselves. Well, how do we do that? They got to have the ability to pick. Yeah, Well then, what does that do? Creates the potential for evil, Okay, Well then, how do we reconcile evil? We're going to prove love. We're going to. You know all this, this grand plan is put in place and the father says you're going to die for them and the son says great idea, yep, let's do it, I'm in.
Speaker 3:Okay, that's the first thing that happens. Then, from that, everything else falls in line underneath and it becomes I think we've had this conversation like a pebble dropped in a pool on one end, where that pebble echoes throughout the rest of the created order and God knows who will say yes and who will not say yes. And so, because he knows Zane will say yes, he places him. Okay, you're going to be born in. How old are you? 80 something.
Speaker 2:Oh 84. Yeah, 84.
Speaker 3:I'm going to make sure he's born in 1984 and I'm going to make sure that he's going to be this and his parents are going to go to Lutheran church. Yep, right Vers sure that he's going to be this and his parents are going to go to Lutheran church. And it did it. Yep, right Versus someone who will never say yes to him. I've got no obligation to this person, right? They'll never say yes to me. Huh. And then, in the final analysis, when they stand in front of him on the day of judgment and he reveals they'll go. You're right, I would have never said yes to you.
Speaker 2:Wow, yep Right.
Speaker 4:That's some deep theology right there, but I think you're right bro.
Speaker 2:I think you're right.
Speaker 3:Amen, yeah, and so that's how you reconcile it is foreknowledge and how you keep salvation as belonging to the Lord and not belonging to me. It was all part of the plan. You root it in his first choice, yep. Which is that covenant? Which is that covenant? And it's the when. When you look, there's very glorious moments like, for instance, revelation says he dwells around his throne, is what looks like a rainbow? Okay, well, what is that? It's covenant.
Speaker 2:Yeah, right, what does?
Speaker 3:God give as his sign and commitment to never flood the world again.
Speaker 2:To Noah, yeah, a rainbow, there you go.
Speaker 3:And so that that idea of the covenant faithfulness of God, he dwells in an atmosphere of covenant. Why? Because the Father and the Son made a deal, right, yeah, right.
Speaker 4:He stands steadfast in his truth, yeah.
Speaker 3:And because the Father and the Son are both God, eternally co-equal, co-eternal, co-existent. Nothing's rooted in man, right, eternal, coexistent. Nothing's rooted in man. Even the faith I have is because of the first faith that the son has toward the father.
Speaker 2:Right, it's his faith.
Speaker 3:That's right. Yeah, jesus is the greater than Abraham, man of faith. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4:I think what you said reconciles.
Speaker 3:Let's do a thing and the son says, yep, let's do a thing. Yeah, go ahead, terrence.
Speaker 4:Thanks thing and the son says, yep, let's do a thing. Yeah, go ahead, terence, thanks. I think what you said reconcile some really difficult passages too. That would not make sense. Apart from what you're saying, scriptures like god created all things, even the wicked, for the day of destruction. To your point, you said he knows they would have never chosen anyway. Or again, the new testament counterpart what if god desires to show his wrath created?
Speaker 4:the vessel of wrath, so that the vessel of honor, and I'm paraphrasing that. But so, yeah, I like what you said. I think that's really dope. Yeah, and for those who are listening, they got more than what I intended to say. I think that was really good high theology and I really hope the people listening would actually don't let that go past. You Think about it, chew on it, wrestle with it.
Speaker 4:And of course, juxtapose it with Scripture. You know, be a Berean See if these things are true indeed, but I think that was a good response.
Speaker 3:And for those who are listening, some of these things are hard to understand and sometimes they're even hard to reconcile with the way you feel Okay. Yeah, even hard to reconcile with the way you feel Okay, and and so challenge the way you feel, to submit it to the scripture Um, number one and then number two. Here, here's what you have to remember at the end of the day, in the final analysis, everything he does will be just. No one's going to be treated unfairly.
Speaker 1:Nobody.
Speaker 3:And not only in the final analysis will he be seen as just. He'll also be seen as good Yep Meaning all of the decisions that he makes. No one will be able to say that was a bad decision, god. Lastly, not only will he be seen as just, not only will he be seen as good. His plan will be seen as ready Best, yep Meaning God, that was the best way to do everything Yep, yep. And no one, not even the devil himself, will be able to say sorry, god, you should have.
Speaker 1:Like.
Speaker 3:Romans, chapter three is clear. That whole controversy in heaven, where, where the devil and the accusers are like, why are you passing over sin? That's all done on the day of the crucifixion and the resurrection, all of that's done in the in the event of the gospel. That heavenly controversy is over Done.
Speaker 4:This is why he passed the verse in I want to harp there for a second. I think it's important for the listeners to hear this. So, again, we're talking about the theodicy. It's really difficult. We said a lot of hard things to hear and, to Jess's point, we may not feel like this suffices as an answer and, to be clear, we're not telling you to feel like if it's justified. All I would say is this though Consider Christ In the Christian worldview. In the Christian scheme of things, we have a God who's not indifferent to suffering. He doesn't live beyond suffering as the other gods do. He entered suffering.
Speaker 4:So, you have a God who is into suffering with you. Though he was a son, hebrew says he learned obedience through sufferings. He was a man of sorrow acquainted with grief. You can draw near to him because he knows what suffering is. You have a faithful high priest in Christ, not an indifferent God who doesn't know what these realities exist or are. So, in my final analysis, I would say this I'm not saying all these answers for you to believe it, because some of these things do take God's grace and God himself to make it make sense to you. I would just simply say consider Christ, though. You don't have a God who's indifferent, who's apart from the suffering. He's in it, he suffers with you and so, in that vein, you can live there knowing that he's not some faraway God who expects you to deal with suffering and he doesn't know what this means or feels like. No, the Bible is very clear he is. He's experienced it, and even worse than we have especially in regards to the suffering on the cross.
Speaker 4:He drank the cup of God's wrath to its dregs. He tasted hell for all who would believe upon him. So he knows what suffering is like and you can live there and have hope there, and from there God will take you elsewhere, but stay there first.
Speaker 2:Amen.
Speaker 4:Amen, that's right.
Speaker 2:So the Lord's opened the loop on evil right, Allowed it into the world to give us choice, to prove our love. When does the loop close? Let's talk about Revelation a little bit.
Speaker 3:Sure, actually, I was thinking about this the other day and I got to remember I was listening to somebody who was talking about what happens. It was actually on the Blurry Creatures podcast. They were interviewing a guy who wrote a book called your Story has a Villain. I forgot exactly what he said about it. So, essentially, what happens, as far as my understanding goes, is our will is actualized, the thing that we've, that, if God is proving love on this side of the veil, okay or on this side of the day of judgment, this whole human experience that we're presently stuck in or involved in, is meant to reveal what do you love? What do you not love, right, right that we've had these conversations over the last number of episodes on on the the rise of the deception, and the earth is meant to prove love the the rise of lawlessness is meant to make love grow cold.
Speaker 3:All that stuff is all there. So we then are actualized on what our will desires on this side. So not only do I enter into the new heavens and the new earth with a brand new body, and not new like this, new like His Right right, okay, yeah, the post-resurrection ascended body.
Speaker 3:I have a will that is so full and taken with Him that I never want sin anymore either. Amen. And the glimpses of that glory that I get on this side and I do get glimpses of that on this side I absolutely like we had I was telling you earlier we had an hour-long altar call on Wednesday. I love that. It was amazing. Amen, absolutely amazing. Yeah. And then yesterday I preached and we had I think all but three people were at the front at the altar. That's incredible. So we get tastes of that glory now, amen.
Speaker 3:But then imagine I don't want to say imagine, think about never even wanting to sin anymore. Right, that lull and that draw, not just the internal but also the external effects of sin are gone. So the way that I've used my will now carries on over into what happens then, okay, and God says all right, everybody, in the final analysis, everybody's going to get what they want. You don't want God. You can have eternity without God. You really, really want God. You start now and you spend eternity with God. Nobody's going to be forced into heaven, nobody's going to be dragged there. People who want to be there will be there. I think we said early on is the mark of the beast in Revelation 13,. Immediately after it says that the servants of God have a mark on their head also. Yeah. And then Ezekiel says when God is judging Jerusalem, he tells the angel take a stylus and mark the servants of God on their forehead.
Speaker 3:So we all now, right now, have a symbol of our allegiance either to the Lord or to the demonic in the spirit realm Right, and that external mark simply reveals what was already true on the inside.
Speaker 2:Okay, well said.
Speaker 3:Amen. So the way that I use my will now gets actualized, then, and I won't want sin Right. Then I won't want sin right and god will solve the entire thing and the whole problem is finalized and culminated. Okay, yeah, and then we segue into this new existence yeah.
Speaker 2:Hence the need for, or the absence rather of a choice, of a second choice which is evil, right yeah?
Speaker 3:yeah. So I think at that point, because the will is actualized, yeah, there's no need for it, it's like yeah, it's like no, you're the, the, the very thing that you long and yearn for, is there, and the satisfaction is to such a degree, and the actualization is to such a degree that it's it's not even it. Can you say that there's the potential for it?
Speaker 3:Sure, but I can also look at you and say there's no like right now. Could Jesse deny Jesus? Yes, I could, conceptually, but guess what? I can't. Why would you, more than why would I can't deny my?
Speaker 2:king Sure, I love it, I can't do it.
Speaker 3:You, yeah, yeah no more than why would I can't deny my king, sure I love it. Yeah, I can't do it right. Yeah, like if someone were to stand here right now and was like deny jesus, I couldn't kill me. Dude, you might as well end it impossible. Yep, right, yep, because I'm done.
Speaker 2:Right, I'm done for him, like, right, so that the the option of evil is irrelevant at that point 100%.
Speaker 3:No one would choose it anyway. Right, right, exactly.
Speaker 2:But in a very real sense too, though. At that point, the option of evil will be eradicated, satan being in the lake of fire. Am I correct? That's sort of where we're at. You're talking about second heaven, post that Armageddon? Yes, new heavens, new Earth, exactly.
Speaker 3:The old heavens and the old earth and everything is destroyed in fire is what Peter says. God recreates an entirely new created order. The only thing that remains is those who make it into the new order and those who are forever in the lake of fire. That was created for the devil and his angels, and which people whose names are not written in the lamb's book of life go and they go in there as well.
Speaker 2:Spend that oh right, all of hell goes in there, right. Hell, death, that's right. Yeah, I forgot about that. Okay, so hell, because hell is sort of a holding place, correct? Until that point, yeah got it?
Speaker 3:yeah, the present day hell and the present day heaven are theologically actually holding tanks.
Speaker 2:Yeah, right, okay, interesting, interesting, I forgot about that. Okay, good, yeah, and you know when you were talking about, you know living in this world and kind of being stuck here, maybe think of Gnosticism and how they see. You know, even they see Yahweh as the Demiurge. You know Abraxas and they're like he created this. He's an evil creator who created this horrible place where we're imprisoned, and we want to be set free.
Speaker 2:And you know, I was thinking it was like why would you know it's? I can see it being, you know, back in the day, perhaps when Gnosticism was big, you know, and it still is today. You know it's more branded as Satanism now, but back in the day it's like, yeah, we can see that this is a really tough life, so that makes a lot of sense to me. But then when you bring in this added element of the gospel where it's like no, there's an entire story playing out in the subject. If only you were to align with it and agree with it. Boy, your reward is already here. You know what?
Speaker 1:I mean yeah.
Speaker 3:It's fascinating that juxtaposition because could have been easy to fall into that Gnostic trap. Back in the day I would say you know, yeah for sure, and I you know, I think people, they, they want, they want anything but the gospel. The gospel is is a stumbling stone and a rock of offense, because what is the cross pointing to particularly? Why is the cross a stumbling block? It's because of justification by faith. That's why the cross is a stumbling block. You are justified, you are made right with God by believing Him, not by your works, not by fulfilling the law, not by worshiping on Saturday versus worshiping on Sunday, Not by cutting your hair this way or wearing this length of skirt. You are justified by a faith response to the one who gives you faith in the first place. Right?
Speaker 4:Yep, yep.
Speaker 2:Yep, yeah, it's ironic because you know it's not to say that Christian Christianity is easy by any means, because it's not, but it is the easier choice, right when you're thinking about, like, whether I have to work for it or not. I want to work for it, like, and I think that that's because every other religion, every other mode of worship, now and up until that point, were works based.
Speaker 3:yeah, it is, and I you know I think we've had this conversation before All the old systems were all works-based.
Speaker 2:Right, they're pro. We're programmed that way, that's right.
Speaker 3:And there's this, and I think what happened probably is is God initiated the don't, don't, don't taste Adam, and he tastes. Adam Now has broken the law. Right, what Adam now has broken the law. What, then, is the response? The corruption that is the nature of the devil creeps into humanity Right Now. All of the seed of Adam is corrupt, as Adam who's corrupt, as Satan. Right, the nature of the devil is corrupt into him.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 3:The demonic realm looks at that sequence of cause and effect as a law. And then they hear God say to Cain and Abel don't do this, Will you not be justified or will you not be accepted if you do what is right? And they start thinking okay, if this is how he gets them to connect with him, how do we rob connection from him, Get them to connect with us the same way? Right? And so now you've got Noah and the Noahic laws Don't drink blood, don't eat this, don't do that, don't do that.
Speaker 1:And it's all these do's and don'ts.
Speaker 3:And the entire demonic order, what Paul calls the stoichia or the elementary spirits, sees these things, and it's the reason why every single religious system is works-based, right, Right. And God is saying the whole time oh boy, oh boy, you have no idea what I'm going to do. Yeah, I'm going to send my son into it to fulfill all of it. Right, perfectly, because he doesn't have sin, your stupid claws are not going to touch him, yeah, and then I'm going to turn the entire thing on its head, right, praise.
Speaker 2:God, glory to God.
Speaker 3:We win Love, that Amen Love that that is so cool.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that that is so cool yeah, that is so cool.
Speaker 3:It is the, the ultimate, the ultimate counterpunch, it is the ultimate the, the fencers, or uh uh swordsman would say is riposte.
Speaker 2:Yeah, right, right with the hit yeah.
Speaker 3:Yep, and it is the ultimate counterinsurgency they affected in an insurgency. Here's the counterinsurgency he knew all along that's right, and the entire time he knows. I'm going to win them and I'm going to break them free from my own just requirement. Yeah Right, yep, yep, wow, yeah Right, yep, wow, wow, I love that which is completely, and it's the reason why the gospel is on the fence, because everyone's everybody wants to feel good about their religious efforts.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they do.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I want to feel like my praying the rosary does something.
Speaker 2:I want to feel like my you know my hours of meditation, yeah, and what's the?
Speaker 3:some of the, the, the Hindus, the, and they're. They're like rolling on their side with no clothes on for like five miles to get to uh, yeah, An ashram, yeah, and they have a, they have a house.
Speaker 2:They always have an altar corner in the home. Yeah Right, that's dedicated to one of the goddess and they're constantly giving offerings to that Give to get. Yeah, pay to play, absolutely, and that's in the home. That's a generational display right there.
Speaker 3:Dude, you go into Chinese food restaurants and they got the cat or they got the Buddha and you know there's money in the cat's hand and all of that is all spiritual stuff. Absolutely All of it is all structure. That goes back to what Paul says in Galatians. Why are you resubmitting yourself to those things?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's the high places For real.
Speaker 3:Why are you going back to them? In Hosea, in particular, god is like you have given yourself to every other deity that is known amongst men, on every green hill and every high place underneath every tree because you think that your lovers are going to pay you for your worship of them. Right, right, it's like you you need to return.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely you need to repent and return to me yeah, and these high places, we can create them anywhere, you know worship over any. It's all about the heart exactly, yeah, where your attention goes, where your love goes, where your worship goes. That's a high place ultimate portals, the heart yep, absolutely. And these, these, these things that people are creating in other religions, it's not that they don't have spiritual significance. They actually do have a lot of spiritual significance, and that's the problem, yep right, yeah, yeah, he's gotta tear down the idols, baby.
Speaker 2:Yep, yeah, all right we're about. Done you guys got any closing?
Speaker 3:uh thoughts like and subscribe we got some good stuff coming up. Uh, send your questions. Yes, yep. Yep, all right, we're about done. You guys got any closing thoughts? Like and subscribe. We got some good stuff coming up. Send your questions. Yeah, send your questions Absolutely.
Speaker 2:And, yeah, great discussion today. I think this is really good stuff to get into but, like Terrence was saying, it's not easy to hear, you know, and it's it. It can cause offense. So I'm glad you guys have listened to this point, if you have, and glory to God for that Good stuff coming out of that for sure. So thank you, gentlemen. As always, blood and oil out Later, all right, guys, peace.
Speaker 1:Blood and Oil podcast is filmed and recorded by Pastor Jesse and Zane in California with Terrence, on video call from the East Coast. We thank our supporters and please be reminded to use your own discernment, as the views and opinions expressed by the hosts and guests may not reflect those of other people, institutions or organizations. A variety of guests will join us as we discuss modern events through a biblical lens, so buckle up and enjoy the ride. Thanks to all of our supporters and praise God for the opportunity to serve him in this way. We hope you have enjoyed this episode and pray for blessings upon your day.
