Hello and welcome to Folly's End podcast, a podcast created to plant the word of God
into your heart, giving you the tools you need to lead a life full of the abundance Jesus
said he came to give us all. That's John 10 verse 10.
Hi, I'm Gareth Cox. And I'm Jessie Cox. Thank you for joining us. And today we're on our
final episode of If God is so Good, then why do you bad things happen? And we're changing the
format up for this one. And it's an in discussion with my producer and my husband, Gareth Cox.
Hello. Hi. So we've decided to do an in discussion podcast to really to kind of ask a few questions,
to get to know a little bit about what the word is actually saying and what it actually means.
And to really kind of dig into it to get the best out of it because it's pretty heavy some of this
topic, isn't it? Yeah, who knew? So I started answering it. What I thought was a really simple
question, you know, if God is so good, then why do bad things happen? And the last episode that we
talked about was about why Jesus, why do we have him? And actually, I thought it was a really easy
answer, but it turns out that it's really complicated. Well, I took the subject matter. If God is so
good, then why do bad things happen? So if God has sent Jesus, then why do bad things still happen?
Yeah, I love that you brought up that question because I guess where we left off from the last
time we're saying, you know, Jesus has defeated the enemy, we now can live this abundant life in
the fullness of what God has done. But yet, a lot of people might still be struggling with some bad
things that do happen. And how do you battle that as a Christian? And, you know, I... Well,
because it's really, in a sense, it's really like, you look at the theology and go, okay,
God made the earth, Satan is bad, God is good, Jesus came, everyone's free, born again, Christians,
we'll go to church on Sunday, isn't that great? But the reality is, is that people are going to be
struggling with the subjects in loads of areas. And this is the question that we're asking now,
isn't it? So if God sent Jesus, why do bad things still happen? What does that look like?
And I think a part of our Christian life is, there's a lot of questions out there that,
you know, and myself, including the past, that just cry out, oh, God, why? You know, why? What's
happening? Help, you know, and lots of us can feel very lost in the middle of the storm. And,
you know, well, if God came and fixed it all, then why have I still got a storm? And I think the
first thing to understand is that, you know, we are still in a battle. You know, yes, God has got
the ultimate victory, but there is still a fight and a war on. And we see that littered throughout
the New Testament, where he talks about, you know, there is the armor of God that we're to put on,
you know, and in 1 Peter 5, verse 8 to 9, it says, be alert, be of sober mind, your enemy,
the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking who he may destroy. Resist him and he
will flee from you. And, you know, you wouldn't have that, because that's after when Jesus, you know,
came back from the dead and defeated Satan and went up to heaven. You wouldn't have that if we
weren't in a battle. We are in a battle because the enemy does go around as a roaring lion,
seeking who he may destroy, just because the ultimate power has been defeated. You know,
the enemy is still a presence in this earth, and he wants to cause us trouble.
So is that kind of, is that the only thing that's against us?
Well, yeah, sadly, it's not the only thing. I mean, the other part of this is that we are in a
decaying world. And I think we have to have realistic expectations of that. And when I was
a lot younger, there was this kind of devil conscious view where everything was the enemy
having a go at us. Your car breaks down and people are outside rebuking the enemy. But, you know,
if you've ignored your car engine light for six months, it's just part of natural life.
Things happen like the washing machine breaks down, and that's just normal. That's just part of life.
So I think, you know, to answer the first kind of couple of questions, well, yeah, one is we
have got an enemy in this world. Another one is we do live in a decaying world. And then I think
the other answer to that is we've got choices that open the door to the enemy.
What does that look like? Choices? What are we doing? What are my choices?
And what am I doing wrong that the devil's knocking on my door?
Yeah. Well, you know, Satan really is a legalist, and he's looking.
He's not lawyer, is he? Nobody understands the law, right?
He understands. He knows. He knows the rule book. He's read the rule book. He knows his way in.
Like a lawyer would understand how to... Well, open your case.
Open your case. There we go. Yeah. And, you know, we see that Satan knows part of the Bible. He even
quoted it when Satan tempted Jesus in the wilderness. So Satan's aware of aspects of the Bible.
And, you know, this is what this 1 Peter 5 verses 8 to 9 says,
be sober, be vigilant, because he goes around like a roaring lion seeking who he may devour.
You know, he knows what we do that gives him an opportunity to attack us. And, you know, that's
the main reason, really, why I live as righteously as I possibly can, not because I'm not okay with
God, because me and God are fine, but because I don't want to open the door to the enemy.
I don't want to live a life where he has got access to me.
So you might say that we need to read the rule book a bit more.
I think we need to understand what it is. I mean, religion teaches us you have to behave well in
order for God to be happy with you. You have to behave well in order for God to be at peace with
you. And that's not the case. You know, God is already at peace with us. You know, right at the
beginning when the angels come to tell the shepherds in the field that Jesus is born,
they say peace on earth between God and mankind, essentially is what they say.
And that's because through Jesus, we now have peace with God. He's not cross with us. It even
says he's not imputing our sinsters. He's not holding our sins against us because of Jesus.
Me and God are fine. But the way I conduct myself, my behavior, what I do opens the door to the enemy.
And there's quite a few things that can do that. You know, hopefully most of us understand that,
you know, sin can open the door to the enemy. For example, if you, you know, are drunk and you've had
a lot of alcohol and then you get in the car and you drive the car, you know, it's like you're going
to have an accident because you're behind a wheel drunk. That opens the door to the enemy.
But there's also some other kind of more subtle things that if you're not really knowledgeable
in the Bible, you might be doing without even knowing it. And one of the first verses in that,
that really struck me is James 3 verse 16 to 17, which says,
for where there is envy and strife, there is confusion and every evil work, which is huge.
Do you want to simplify that for us? Yeah. So envy and strife, it's, they're probably phrases
we don't say very much, but envying, you know, means to want something that somebody else has
got and strife is just a lot of arguments. And when you get into strife, you can feel it even in
your home, you know, when everyone's yelling and, you know, people are getting cross and upset and
I rate. So this is, this is, envy and strife is about arguments between people. It's a confusing
confusion of every evil work. Yeah. And you know, there's lots of things that you can do that don't
open the door to everything the enemy's got, but, you know, strife and envy open the door to
everything the enemy's got. And when I first discovered that verse and really started to
allow God to talk to me about it, I realized that most of my life was conducted in strife,
you know, even from getting in the car and being cross with somebody in the way that they're driving,
you know, to receiving an email and being outraged by it and angry to, you know, even bickering at
home with you and the kids, you know, that, that's something that we can do that opens
the door to everything the enemy's got. So that verse actually goes on to say,
but the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceful, gentle and easy to be
entreated full of mercy and good fruits. You know, obviously this has given you the answer,
isn't it? Saying the opposite of envy and strife. It's to live peaceably.
Is, well, and to have the wisdom, wisdom of God. Yeah. And you know, now, you know, when,
and I'm human and you live with me, so you know what I'm like. But, you know, now when I can start
feeling, you know, the kids fighting, arguing, you know, work calling, stress arising, trying to do
seven things at once. You know, now that's, I always take a deep breath now and go, okay, God,
help me, give me a wisdom in how to handle this because I don't want to behave in a way that
opens the door to the enemy by being in strife, by yelling at the kids, shouting at everybody,
getting frustrated with, you know, the situation I'm in, because that opens the door to everything
that the enemy's got. And that's, you know, a lot of people are praying for peace in their lives,
but are just allowing every situation to rock their emotions and they go from naught to 100 in 30
seconds because they're so used to living in a place of strife and stress. So I've got a question
for you. What advice is there for avoiding these situations? So we're talking about where, you
know, where trouble comes from, but how do we avoid these situations? What do we get? Because this is
clearly, this is heart and head action at this point, isn't it? It's not physical, it can be
physical, but what we're trying to do something that is from our heart and our mind to avoid these
situations. So give us a verse maybe that might get me there. That's a great question, Gareth.
And, you know, if you want a verse, here's where to start. So Hebrews 4 verse 12 says,
For the word of God is quick and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword,
piercing even to the division asunder of the soul and the spirit and to the joints and marrow,
and is a discerner of the thought and the intent of the heart. There is so much there,
but let me try and break it up a bit. Because it sounds like you're basically saying God's given
you a weapon. Great. Yes, he absolutely has given you a weapon. And, you know, the thing is about
any lasting change, and this is where I have so messed up my previous thinking, you know, with
any lasting change, what the world tells us to do is you have to look at your outward behaviour
and adjust your outward behaviour accordingly. So if you want to lose weight, you have to just
sort out the fact that you're stuffing your face with chocolate. If you want to be, you know,
less shouty with the kids, here's a five-step programme on how to deal with your anger.
But the real lasting change comes from the intent of your heart. You know, Jesus says,
it's not what you put in the mouth that defiles a man, but it's what comes out of the mouth that
defiles a man. And so often, you know, we focus on our outward actions as being the issue. That
is not your issue. Your issue is it's what is on the inside of your heart is going to come out in
your actions and is going to come out in the way that you speak. And there's no point in me giving
you like a 10-part plan on how to deal with, you know, when the enemy comes, because you need to have
on the inside of you, there has to be an understanding of who you are and who God has made you to be.
And this word here, you know, in Hebrews 4 verse 12 says that we have got a weapon and it pierces
between the soul and the spirit, the joints and the marrow. It's the very inner part of our bodies
that we need this change and it's the word of God that brings that change. It's the thing that cuts
on the inside of us that sets us free and changes who we are.
I mean, you're basically telling me to read my Bible.
I'm basically telling you to read your Bible. Now, there is a little Hosea passage.
Yeah, read it.
Shall we read it to you? Yes, please.
Yeah.
Hosea 4 verse 6, maybe.
That's one.
Yeah.
My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.
Yeah. And that is so huge. I feel like I want to put that on like a massive thing in our house because
so often God has given us the answer of what we need to do, but we don't get it and we don't
understand. And I think, I don't know how it works in other churches, in other cultures,
but certainly in England, we kind of sit around waiting for the preacher to spoon feed us and
to give us all the answers, but we're not in our Bible regularly. So, if you're asking for my number
one top tip to stop the enemy coming and stealing, killing and destroying in your life, my first
answer is you have to get into the Word for yourself.
There are quite a few ways to do that. And I mean, we're not advertising anything here, but
there are Word of the Day type and apps on your phone and things like that, where you can actually
just have 15 minutes every day and get into the Word. So, there is possible ways.
So much easier now. And there are search engines as well. So, if you want to look up a topic,
you just put into Google, scriptures on sleep, scriptures on raising kids,
scriptures on marriage, and it just bang, it all goes there.
So, there are relatively simple ways to get to the Word of God.
And I tell you what someone said to me that was really freeing is that it doesn't matter how you
do it, you just get it on the inside of you. So, we're not wanting to plug like anything specific,
but there are audible books and you can get an audible Bible version where it's just somebody
speaking out. And if you haven't got time to sit and read, you can just listen to it.
I had a conversation with someone not that long ago where they said, oh, I'm reading it, but it
just doesn't make a lot of sense. And I feel like it's kind of washing over me. And I'm not really
getting out anything out of it. And the Lord gave me a picture at the time that she was talking about
it of this very, very dry ground. I don't know if you've ever seen it in the desert where there's
like cracks in the earth. And some of us are like that spiritually with the Word of God.
And you might be feeling like it's not penetrating, it's not going anywhere,
it's just rolling off me, but it is going somewhere and it will go in and eventually the ground will
get soft and you will receive it. So you've got to stick with it. You can't also do it on your own.
So there are Bible studies, tell groups, you can ask people for help if you don't understand it.
And, you know, I think that's what is so powerful about husband and wife relationship. You know,
if you're lucky enough to be married, you can support each other and help each other with that
and have discussions at home about the Word. Because, I mean, you said, I said to you yesterday,
the Bible is such a love story, you know, relationship between us and God. And you said,
oh, it's like a thriller or an action pact. You had so much going on.
Definitely, it's a thriller. And I would just, my advice is really for people is to get into the
Word of God for yourself, you know, spend time reading it and ask the Holy Spirit, here's your
helper, here's your teacher. And one of the things that I think is so important is Jesus says that
the Holy Spirit will bring back to remembrance all the things that he said. But if you've never
read the Bible, there's nothing to bring back to your memory. Because you don't know. You've never
read it. It's not there. It's not there to recall in your memory, is it? Yeah. And get a version
that you are happy with, you know, I read from the King James because it uses words that I don't
always understand. I have to Google half of them. I love it though, because it makes it,
it's so the Greek and the Hebrew language is so much more complex than our English.
You know, there's, you know, five words for the word love, you know, and amazingly, you know,
the King James says charity instead of love because it's the word agape. So I love reading
the King James because it makes me dive into the word deeper, but there's not your thing,
it's not your thing. Absolutely. So going back to, okay, why do bad things happen? So basically,
I think it's one, it's the enemy that's coming to fight us. And I just don't know if we've mentioned
this, but it says in the Bible, resist the devil and he will flee from you. You have to resist the
devil for yourself. There is no point in praying to God, resist the devil for me, because that's
not what he told you to do. You have to take your own authority and you have to resist the devil.
Where's the verse for that? So it's in James four, first seven, and it says therefore,
submit to God, resist the devil and he will flee from you. And so many times, you know,
I have people come to me and say, can you pray that the devil will get off my back or can you pray
that God will sort the devil out for me? But that is not what God's word says. Is it not us that has
to do the work? It's our word, not someone else's word. Yeah, absolutely. And you know, I can't
resist the devil for you and you can't resist the devil for me. You know, we have to do it ourselves.
And you also don't say God resists the devil. Yeah, because that's also not the word. No,
God resists the devil for me. Hang on a minute. He's given you the authority. Yeah, you're the
power. And I think that sometimes when you kind of hear radio silence from God, because you know,
you're saying, oh, God resist the devil. And God's like, I told you that didn't I tell them? I'm
sure I told them to do it themselves. And it's almost like radio silence because that's not
the word. That's not what he's told us to do. And I think there's quite a lot of things that
we just don't get because we don't understand the word or we haven't read it.
There's a lot to understand, though. Yeah, Gareth, like, I think I'm going to spend the rest of my
life in this Bible working out the ways of God because it's not like a one time thing.
You don't just pick up a manual, read it and you're done once. That's why it's called the
living word of God because it is living and it moves with us in our journey.
There's the article called devotional. That's how I was going to I was trying to work out what the
word was called. But in the Bible, for example, you do 15 minutes of Bible in the morning. Yeah,
brings up a subject and whatever it happens to be. And the best part about it is the
you actually you read the word and it might only be a verse therefore a sentence. But then
you've got paragraphs and paragraphs after it actually explaining what's going on.
And that really helps to get into it is the meaty part of the word.
Tell you what the thing for me that really changed me on the inside was reading the Bible in one
year. So, you know, if you there's loads of plans online, you just type in read the Bible in a year
and it gives you a list of what days and how much to read. And that for me massively changed things
because once I started getting into the word, you know, then I got a real hunger for it and I
was off and I didn't need any apps. I didn't need anything because I got it for myself. But it's a
good place to start. In my notes here, I've put read your Bible and act on those instructions.
Yeah, I mean, there's that Bible verse that says don't just be a hero of the word but be a doer of
the word. And you know, it's easy to hear. It's a whole nother thing to actually do it.
And you need the Holy Spirit. And this is why I say so many times in this podcast,
lean not on your own understanding but in all your ways, submit them to God, let Him lead you.
It's not just, well, you can't do this through willpower. You cannot lead a supernatural life
leaning on your natural abilities. You have to lean on God.
I mean, I feel like this is we've wrapped it up quite nicely in a sense because, I mean,
we've gone on a really big journey of if God is so good, then why the bad things happen. But we've
revealed that Jesus is our Savior. He's the reason why life is pretty good. But as a consequence,
we have to power in ourselves now to resist the devil and get close to God in the same breath.
Well, hopefully, do that first and then resist the devil. I mean, the devil's hot on your heels,
but with God, with the word, we'd probably be okay. But bad things do still happen,
and that's okay. And we can pray about that. It's just part of life. I mean,
we live in a world where Satan hates, hates, hates Christians, and he doesn't want us to
succeed because ultimately, he probably knows that we've got the power better than sometimes we even
know we've got the power. And James 4, verse 7, the first part of resist the devil and he will
flee from you, the first bit is there for submit to God. And in everything that we do, we've got
to get out of the way and submit ourselves, be a living sacrifice, give our lives over to God,
and allow ourselves to be changed day by day through being in a relationship with him. And,
you know, just for a final word to anybody that is going through trouble, and believe me, we've been
through some serious trouble. You know, we face some really big giants in our lives, some really
scary stuff. But God is faithful, and he always, always takes care of us, and he always causes
us to triumph. And this too will pass. So, until we speak again, be kind to yourself and each other.
You have been listening to the Folly's End podcast. If you'd like to know more information,
get in touch by folliesentrust.co.uk. Thanks for listening. See you next time.