Welcome to Walk in the Truth podcast. How do we know where to find answers to the toughest
questions in life? While the simplest answer is the Bible, where do we start this search
and how do we discover this truth? Today, in this teaching podcast, John Meador, lead
pastor of Cross City Church, takes a specific text of the Bible and helps us find truth
for the life we're searching for. So glad that you're with us this morning. It's been
a great morning of worship and man, I just sense the presence of the Lord. His goodness
is so, so good. And I want to ask you a question today that I know that you've dealt with in
the past and many people have that question in their hearts that I'm about to ask and
that is how can a good God, if he's so good, if his goodness pursues us and is running
after us and if we talk about the mercy of God, the goodness of God, the love of God
so much, how can a good God allow evil to take place the way it does in our world? How
many of you have asked or heard that question asked of you in recent days? Would you raise
your hand? How can a good God allow evil of the Holocaust? How can a good God allow random
wickedness and evil to take place? Well that's what we're going to be looking at today. How
can a good God allow evil in our Dear God series? Please take your Bibles and turn to
Ecclesiastes chapter 3 beginning in verse 1. We'll read the first 17 verses, a good
segment here of Ecclesiastes chapter 3 and I'll ask you to stand with me as we read it.
If you're having trouble finding it, it's just to the right of Psalms and Proverbs.
And Solomon writing in the book of Ecclesiastes is writing, now if you remember Solomon is
the wisest man in all the world. God has given him wisdom beyond anyone else. Read the book
of Proverbs and you'll read the wisdom of Solomon day in and day out, just incredible
wisdom that God gave him to rule, to lead, and to write, and to preach, and teach. And
now we're looking at something in the book of Ecclesiastes that the latter part of his
life. Solomon as wise as he was made many poor decisions and now he's looking back over
his life with all the wisdom that he has that God has given him. He's trying to factor in
some of the things that he's seen that seemingly are difficult to answer like the problem of
evil and other things. I'm going to read the first 17 verses which will be our setting
to begin this question, how can a good God allow evil? We'll go from Genesis to Revelation
today but we'll start here. Verse one says, there's an appointed time for everything.
There is a time for every matter under heaven. A time to give birth and a time to die. A
time to plant and a time to uproot what is planted. A time to kill and a time to heal.
A time to tear down and a time to build up. A time to weep and a time to laugh. A time
to mourn and a time to dance. A time to throw stones and a time to gather stones. A time
to embrace and a time to shun embracing. A time to search and a time to give up as lost.
A time to keep and a time to throw away. A time to tear apart and a time to sew together.
A time to be silent and a time to speak. A time to love and a time to hate. A time for
war and a time for peace. He goes on and says, what benefit is there for the worker from
that in which he labors? I've seen the task which God has given the sons of mankind with
which to occupy themselves. He has made everything appropriate in its time. He has also set eternity
in their heart without the possibility that mankind will find out the work which God has
done from the beginning even to the end. I know that there's nothing better for them
than to rejoice and to do good in one's lifetime. Moreover, that every person who eats and drinks
sees good in all of his labor. This is the gift of God. I know that everything God does
will remain forever and there's nothing to add to it and nothing to take away from it.
God has so worked that people will fear him. That which is, is what has already been and
that which will be has already been and God seeks what has passed by. Furthermore, I have
seen under the son that in the place of justice there is wickedness and in the place of wickedness
or righteousness there is wickedness. I said to myself, God will judge the righteous and
the wicked for a time for every matter and for every deed is there. You can hear him
saying these words. I'm wondering about how all this works out. I know certain things.
I know there's a time for everything but how does God do all that from an eternal perspective?
That's what we'll try to answer today. Father, in Jesus' name speak to us today about this
question of good and evil and your goodness and how it all fits together in our mind and
with our faith in you, Lord. We ask that you illuminate your word. We ask it in Jesus'
name and all God's people said amen. Please be seated if you would.
So I hope that you are with me today in this little journey that we take climbing up a
mountain of perspective is what I'll call it. As we climb up this mountain of perspective
certain hand holes will help us get higher and higher to be able to see and understand
the whole landscape of the goodness of God and the suffering that we see taking place
on the earth. In 2004, some of you remember a tsunami hit across the world actually. 250,000
innocent people drowned in that tsunami. The headlines the next day read in magazines all
over the world, if God is God, he is not good. And if God is good, he's not God. You can't
have it both ways. A good God would have to stop a tragedy that's senseless like this.
That's what the headlines read. That's what people were saying and asking. Recently we
visited the Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem. And many of us know of the Holocaust. Many
have been in various museums. But there's something especially powerful about that museum
in Jerusalem because it was the Jewish people that actually were annihilated and taken to
the concentration camps. And something about walking through the hallways of that Holocaust
Museum provoked inside of just about everybody in the group that was there. How did God allow
something like this to happen? Where was God when his people were going through those things?
But for many of us it's more personal than that. Where was God when that bad thing happened
to me? Or to someone that's close to me? Or why was our community terrified by a crazed
gunman who shot and killed so many in a local mall not long ago? Those questions come up
over and over again. And I want to tell you today as we begin this message, you're going
to get some answers from the Word of God today, but you won't always know the answers of why
and difficult questions. Not yet you won't. One day you will, but not yet you won't. Lisa
Terkhurst writing her book on suffering said, pursuing answers to why God allows hard things
has never given me the peace I want. I dig as deep as I can. I go as far as I can, but
it never gives me all the peace I want. And yet she concludes I can still hold on to him
through life's difficulties. Anybody in this room ever climbed a mountain high enough to
see a whole different perspective than what you saw on ground level? Well it's quite an
experience. It's hard to get up. You have to have those handholds getting up there. But
once you get to the top, you see things so radically different that you can never imagine.
When I was 12 years old, my mom and dad took my brother and I, who was 10 years old at
the time, to the biggest mountain in Oklahoma and turned us loose to climb to the top. You're
laughing because Oklahoma has no mountains, aren't you? Not many. Mountain Scott is the
second tallest mountain in Oklahoma and the peak is 2,500 feet. That's not very high.
So my parents turned us loose, said we'll come back at the end of the day, go to the
mountaintop and come back down. That's child care back in the day I was growing up. But
2,500 feet is twice the height of the Empire State Building. And we found the little handholds
it took to get to the top. It's a gradually sloping mountain. Don't worry about my parents'
sanity here, okay? We got to the top and when we got to the top, it was really kind of life
changing for this 12 year old to see that when you're at the top of the mountain, you
see something so different from what you saw at ground level. You see for miles and miles
and you see features you would never have seen otherwise. I'll always cherish that experience
and that's the kind of experience I want you to take spiritually today as we climb a mountain
of revelation, if you will, or a mountain of perspective to get higher and higher above
ground level where all the suffering is happening day to day and say how can God allow that
kind of thing to happen? I hope to give you handholds to grip as we climb this mountain
of perspective. So I'm going to give you first of all a set of truths to guide us. And then
I'm going to give you some reasons for suffering on the planet. And finally I'm going to give
you some promises that God gives us even though we're on a suffering surrounded world that
you and I can hold on to until a better world comes. So first of all, some truths to guide
us. First truth is our good God created a good world. Now read the book of Genesis and
you'll see how God created the heavens and the earth in such a powerful and perfect way
that it was not just good but according to God it was very good. God saw all that he
had made, the Bible says, and behold it was very good. Some day do a word study on the
word good from the perspective of God's good and you'll see that it's far different from
our good. Our good is just okay. God's good is not just very good but it's absolute perfection.
For example, Jesus says there is none good but one and that is God. God is the only one
that's good. So there's nothing that we really compare our good with his good but God created
a good and perfect world for us to live in. And honestly who's not amazed by the planet
earth? I mean I am amazed and astounded by all the things that you can see on the planet.
Unexplainable kind of features of the landscape. I love to stand on the brink of the Grand
Canyon and look at that and wonder at how God created that. We're on a mountaintop,
not a real mountain, not in Oklahoma. I wonder exactly how is it that God has created these
mountain peaks and how is it that he has so altered the landscape to make it so incredibly
beautiful. We spend crazy amount of time and crazy amounts of money traveling places so
we can just see them all. We have bucket lists. I want to see this thing and I want to see
that place and I want to go to that city just so we can see something so amazing and so
powerful as the earth that God created. God gave us a good world. He gave us a great earth
to live on. This last week I was doing some research in this and I just kind of got on
a website that had good earth quotes, good earth quotes and these are quotes by people
that are not necessarily believers. In fact there are many atheists that look at the earth
and say it's the good earth. And as you look at their quotations you see that they're mesmerized
by the planet that we're on. That's why so many people want to preserve the planet that
we're on because they realize its beauty and they realize its uniqueness. We're fascinated
by the beauty and the harmony and the alignment and the secretization, everything that God
has given us on the planet. And we can go on and on and talk about the fact that everything
we need to exist and everything we need to thrive has been placed before we were placed
on this planet earth. God created a good world in which we can live in. Would you agree with
that today? God created the heavens and the earth a good world. But the second truth is
free mankind chooses disobedience and death. Free mankind chooses disobedience and death.
The same creation story that describes God created the heavens and the earth tells us
about the creation of the first man and the first woman, Adam and Eve, and the free will
He gave them to choose for themselves. And they chose, as you know, disobedience. Four
thousand years later the apostle Paul describes the impact of their choices in Romans 8 and
so much is written in Romans 8. It says in chapter 5 of Romans, for example, leading
up to Romans 8, therefore, justice through one man sin entered into the world and death
spread to all men because all sinned goes on to say because of that sin and because
of that death, death reigned and death reeled on the planet. Later on we'll read in Romans
chapter 8 where the whole earth is groaning because it wants to be freed from the curse
of sin on the earth itself. So what's happened is Adam and Eve's choice to disobey God brings
sin and death and all kinds of curses to the earth that we live on. As beautiful as it
is, did you know that our earth is cursed today because of sin? You can read about it
in the book of Genesis. Let's think about that curse for just a few moments because
it impacts everything about this question about suffering. For example, Adam and Eve's
choice of sin and death brings a curse to people. We are from that moment on separate
from the God who created heaven and earth and we must have a bridge to gap that difference
between ourselves and God. They received a curse to their bodies today. Did you know
that your body will not live forever? Surely you're aware of that. Disease and difficulty
will happen to our body. Old age will take place in our lives as a result of the original
sin and the curse that came in the Garden of Eden. Ultimately, everyone will die. Do
you know it's not sounding like good news right now but that 100% of humanity will face
death? We will all die. We're mortal individuals because of the curse of sin. But also the
curse on the earth itself. Did you know that the garden existence in the Garden of Eden
was not an existence of difficulty but it became difficult because of the curse on the
earth? In fact, if you describe heaven and earth and all of humanity, all of earth and
all of humanity has been cursed by the choice of mankind to sin. Free will brings suffering.
So why did God allow Adam and Eve to choose sin? God created us with the capacity to do
good and he entrusted heaven and earth to us. He entrusted the animals to Adam and Eve
and we wouldn't have it any other way. We would want free will. We would want the capacity
to choose. We choose free will but we just can't choose our consequences. We so desperately
want to be free. We so desperately want to choose the circumstances of our lives and
the decisions that we make day in and day out. But it's those choices that have led
us to suffering and cursing and difficulty. We would like a pain-free world in which we
have both freedom to live just like we want to and freedom from suffering consequences.
But those two things are mutually exclusive because we do not choose the right way just
as Adam and Eve did not do. There was C.S. Lewis that said, try to exclude the possibility
of suffering which the order of nature and the existence of free wills involve and you
will find that you've excluded life itself. There is no life where there is no suffering
because there is no life where there is not free will. Stay with me here today. You have
a free will just as Adam and Eve had and that in itself brings suffering. There is no pain-free
world where free will and sin exist. Then the third truth, God will create a new world
in eternal perfection. He created a perfect world. Man took that perfect world and began
to make choices that brought suffering but God will create a new world in eternal perfection.
This is the heaven that we sing about. Revelation chapter 21, we've looked at Genesis, now we're
going to the very last book in the Bible, nearly the last chapter, Revelation 21, where
John says, then I saw a new heaven and a new earth for the first heaven and the first earth
passed away. So the first earth will end with the earth being destroyed and there will no
longer be any death in this new heaven and this new earth. There will no longer be any
mourning or crying or pain. The first things have passed away. Now that sounds like good
news to me. It's kind of what we want now, right? But God says, I will create that new
heaven and that new earth. And I think this is an amazing glimpse of what God has for
us in the future. This says so much about the fact that God is a good God who always
provides for his people to be in a good world. But here's what I think we do. We vastly underestimate
the beauty and perfection of the original creation. Vastly underestimate the horrific
after effects of the curse of sin and disobedience and rebellion. We so minimize that. We underestimate
the glorious future existence that God has for every single one of us who believe. God's
created world was perfect before we arrived. His new creation will be perfect after mankind
is done from the earth. But in the middle, while we're here, in this middle place, this
middle earth, if you will, this middle world, sin and choices and free will and suffering
and hardship and death are just going to be part of our existence. It's only where we
have freedom that suffering and hardship is real. And you're thinking to yourself, man,
this is turning out to be a real downer of a message today, Pastor. You know, today many
people that are far from God who do not believe in the existence of God use the presence of
suffering as a way to say, I don't believe in a good God. And you might encounter some
of those people from time to time and they may question you. And let me just say that
most people today don't accept that argument for the existence of a good God, that if suffering
is here, there must be no good God. The idea is that most of the world skeptics don't even
accept that anymore. Suffering does not explain in a way the existence of a good God. And
the reason for that is if you take God out of the equation, you have no creator, no good
world to begin with, and you have an evolutionary process as a result of a Big Bang Theory in
which survival of the fittest is the theme. Without God, it's just each one of us trying
to survive over and above and beyond anybody else. And the whole idea of the survival of
the fittest is suffering and hardship and conquest and putting others down in order
for you to be at the top of the evolutionary cycle. So even scientists today won't even
use that as an argument for the fact that they believe that there is no God, that suffering
says that there is no God. A godless world is more wicked and more pointless than you
can possibly imagine. But the evidence for the presence of God, for the reality of God
is so compelling, so real for us that know Him that we wrestle with the issue of suffering
from a completely different perspective, and that's the perspective of faith. I so believe
in the goodness of God that I look for other reasons for human suffering other than there
must be some gap in God's judgment or a gap in God's ability to do that. When bad things
happen I don't say, God, where were you? I know where God is. When bad things happen
I don't look at God and say, there's some flaw in your character because you should
have rescued me from that bad thing that was happening. Why did you turn your back on so
many of us? Because the Bible doesn't say that God is doing that. So let me give you
some reasons now for suffering that are so important for us. At this point we're starting
to climb the mountain and we should be at about the halfway point of being able to see
more clearly the landscape around us in answering this question, why does evil happen when God
is good? So let me give you three reasons today to consider for suffering. Number one,
suffering is the direct result of rebellion against God. This is inescapable. There's
no place that you can look at in the Bible or in life itself where this is not true.
Suffering is the direct result of rebellion against God. And if you want to look at creation,
let's timeline all this. First of all there's Lucifer's rebellion against God in heaven.
He's a fallen angel, right? And we knew that he fell from heaven. We read about that in
Ezekiel and Isaiah, but he fell from heaven before the temptation of mankind because he
ended up tempted Eve in the Garden of Eden. So first of all Satan fell from heaven. Lucifer
fell and became an adversary to God. And all kinds of subsequent evil and pain took place
because of his fall. Next is Adam's rebellion against God's command. God said to Adam and
Eve, if you eat of this one tree, you shall surely die. And of course Adam and Eve disobeyed
God and set sin and death in motion. Sin and death can be traced back to that day when
they rebelled against God's command. And then the third event that takes place in this timeline
is Cain's rebellion against his brother. Even though the curse had happened and mankind
was told you shall surely die before disease set in, before sickness brought suffering,
evil in Cain's heart led to the very first murder. Genesis chapter four verse eight,
and it came about when they were in the field that Cain rose up against Abel, his brother,
and killed him. And of course the first murder was a precursor for all murder. My concern
is that we badly underestimate the depravity and the severity of human depravity and sinfulness.
We badly underestimate the power of Satan to bring those things about and fuel those
in our lives. And as a result of that, we see all this horrible stuff happening and
we say, well it must be God. It can't be us. It can't be the people I know. If we don't
see Satan, so we blame God so often. But I want you to consider the horrific tragedies
that we talk about a lot. The horrific tragedy of slavery for so many years in America, but
also all over the world. I want you to think about sex trafficking for just a few moments
and the almost unimaginable things that young victims of sex trafficking go through and
the incredibly, incredibly wicked intent of those who make it happen. Or think about war.
I've recently watched some video of World War II and even though I know well the history
of World War II, again it was brought to me face to face about the atrocities that were
created in instigating the war and all that took place during the war and the ending of
it. All the direct result of unrestrained sinful mankind. What I read about the Holocaust,
the annihilation of six million Jews in Europe by wicked demon possessed Adolf Hitler is
a direct result of sinful mankind and so much suffering that happens as a result of rebelling
against God. So when I'm thinking about this question, when I'm considering how can God,
a good God, allow so much suffering in this earth, why am I blaming a good God when sinfulness
is so obvious and so deep? And the answer is I shouldn't blame a good God when sinfulness
is so obvious. Here's a third reason suffering happens because of the curse of sin on the
earth. Romans 8 goes back and talks a little bit about that original sin and here's how
it describes it. We know that the whole creation, Paul says, groans and suffers the pains of
childbirth together until now. The whole creation, you know what the whole creation refers to
of course is everything that God created. All of it. It's not difficult to understand.
It's not just mankind, it's also everything else on the earth. The curse, for example,
brought thorns and pistols to the agricultural efforts of Adam and Eve. God said to Adam
by the sweat of your brow, you're going to work because of this sinful action you've
taken, you're cursed. The earth is cursed. We didn't read about thorns and pistols before
the curse. Think about the effects of sin and rebellion on animal life. I think it's
obvious. In the garden, in Eden, the animals lived in peace. In the after world, the Bible
says in that new creation, the lion will lay down with the lamb but in this present age
the lion does not lay down with the lamb. Think about natural catastrophes. They're
influenced by the curse of sinful mankind upon the earth. Do you expect to see earthquakes
and tornadoes and tidal waves in God's perfect heaven? Did you see them in the garden of
Eden? Of course not. But on a cursed earth they're prevalent. It happens all over because
the earth is cursed. The Bible says in the same way we groan and suffer and anticipate
freedom from this cursed body, the earth anticipates that same kind of freedom from sins, corruption
and we feel it. I came across a quote this last week that kind of stuck with me. It kind
of, I think, characterizes the dilemma that we feel in our hearts sometimes when suffering
happens. A guy named Chuck Palahniuk said this. He said, what makes earth feel like
hell is our expectation that it should feel like heaven. We want earth to feel like heaven.
We want earth to be perfect. We want earth to treat us well. We want people to treat
us well. We want society and culture to treat us well. We want earth to feel like heaven.
And in our hopes we've forgotten that heaven is where that's going to happen. Not earth.
This isn't heaven. Thirdly, suffering is caused by personal disobedience. Not only
as a direct result of the rebellion against God and not only because of the curse of sin
on the earth but by personal disobedience. In other words, you can suffer by making wrong
choices. Sometimes suffering is not the result of general sinfulness but it's personal when
we do things that lead us to be in suffering. The tragic car wreck that takes place because
someone drives drunk or because someone exceeds the speed limit to a ridiculous amount and
not only hurts them but also others that they hit in that collision. Because of the direct
result of our disobedience in some personal way many people are hurt. Relationships are
a great example of that. When we hurt other people then suffering takes place because
of our disobedience and our unwillingness to live the way we ought to live with each
other. Sometimes God just allows us to receive consequences that we deserve, that we create.
Remember the guy named Jonah in the Old Testament? Most of us remember Jonah pretty well. Do
you remember he disobeyed God? He ran from the command to go to Nineveh and he wanted
to go to Tarshish so he goes into the ship. He's down in the hold and the storm takes
place. And the Bible describes the storm this way. The Lord hurled a great wind on the sea
and there was a great storm on the sea so that the ship was about to break up. So the
sailors were afraid and they went through this calamity. They felt like they were all
suffering and they didn't know why. So they're asking questions about it and Jonah gives
them the answer. Now Jonah does not say the answer is that you need to toughen up, it's
just the weather. That's all it is, it's just the weather. No, Jonah says it's me. This
storm is here because of me. And when you throw me overboard this storm stops. There's
no better evidence that sometimes suffering happens because of personal decisions. Now
it's a notable exception that we're looking at here in the Bible. God does not always
send literal storms to every disobedient person. So the next time you see a tornado it's not
necessarily an indication that you need to get on your face and repent, okay? But if
you need to go ahead and do it right then, that's a good time. It's present though. It's
one of the reasons that suffering happens. God is not vengeful to us but he's a perfect
father who will discipline us so that we can reflect his character so sometimes even your
heavenly father will discipline you in a way that's painful and creates some suffering
in your life. There are three reasons for suffering that I've shared with you. We're
at the halfway point of understanding a higher perspective of suffering but here's the third
place I'm going to take you. Three promises to believe. Let me give you some handholds
to get to the top of that mountain. The first promise is that God will bring justice and
vengeance to evil acts. I take personal satisfaction in that promise because I'm told that I'm
not to retaliate on my own. I take personal satisfaction in the fact that one day God
will level the playing field, deal with every person the way they ought to be dealt with
in ways that I can never even imagine and certainly not be able to do. During the persecution
of the New Testament church, Paul wrote to the church at Rome that was under the real
heat of persecution by the emperor Nero. Hundreds of thousands of believers were being
killed but here's what he says. He said, never take your own revenge beloved but leave
room for the wrath of God for it is written, and here's the promise, vengeance is mine,
I will repay says the Lord. One day every injustice, every inequity, whatever that may
mean in the eyes of God, every single one of them will be dealt with, God will repay
evil. And as you noted in the book of Ecclesiastes, Sodom even referred to that. Those New Testament
Christians died in Christendom, in martyrdom rather as the emperor persecuted them as we
were referring to a moment ago. They didn't understand it then, they didn't know what
to say about the persecution that seemingly was senseless but I can tell you now in the
presence of God they have an answer for why God allowed that and they also have an answer
for all their persecutors were dealt with by God himself. Over and over in scripture
and God has this great reputation here, over and over in scripture God proves himself to
be a just and holy God, he will punish and eradicate evil and when we see evil and when
we see suffering and we come to the defense of those that are suffering, the anger and
the frustration that rises up inside of us, just remember that only God is big enough
and wise enough to fairly and justly and eternally deal with it. If he created the heavens and
the earth he can make it right again but only God can do that, we want to take it in our
hands and we just can't.
The first of all God will bring justice and vengeance to evil acts, secondly, second promise
God will bring good out of suffering and I know this is a hard one to listen to especially
if you've gone through suffering and I think sometimes we quote Romans 8.28 and people
say oh you're going there again. That's your regular answer to tough things and I would
answer to you yes it is my regular answer to tough things because it's the best answer
to tough things. Now you know what it says, read it with me out loud would you? And we
know that God causes all things together for good, to work together for good to those who
love God, to those who are called according to his purpose. Man what a passage, what a
verse. Now Paul's been through persecution, he's been through suffering, he's saying
this in light of all that. We know God causes all things to work together for good, God
will bring good out of suffering, we can believe that, we can know that. It's just difficult
for us to see it sometimes right? God I know you're able to do that, theologically I'm
sure of it. I have enough faith to believe you'll cause it to work together for good
but man why don't you show me how that's going to work. Tim Keller said just because you
can't see or imagine a good reason why God might allow something doesn't mean there
can't be one. Just because you don't see it doesn't mean anything at all, it just
means that you're not all knowing and you're not all wise, you're not all seeing but oh
we want to be. Sometimes things happen in life and they're kind of small and they're
kind of trivial but they help us kind of conceptualize this and this happened a number of times when
my kids were growing up. I would always try to play games with them in fun ways to me
that would later on teach them a lesson. I remember my middle daughter wanted a car really
badly when she was 16. We went car shopping and we found a little Honda Civic that was
just perfect for her and it was just gently used if you would, if you want to call it
like that it was just in good shape enough for her. So I saw it that day and talked to
the guy and we decided to look on for other cars and I didn't say anything else about
the car. I went back to the dealership and bought it and took it to a friend's house,
parked it in the garage because her birthday was weeks away. We looked for other cars and
I wasn't going to let her know I'd bought the car and she said well what about that
first car we looked at? I said somebody bought it. I didn't tell her who. Knowing it was
just a few blocks away in my friend's garage. And my daughter was angry about that. Every
other car we looked at she would look at and say but that white Civic dad if you just bought
that everything would be just fine I don't like anything else and this went on for weeks
until I was ready to give her the car before her birthday. But on her birthday she came
outside that car was wrapped in a canvas and she pulled it off and there was that car that
she wanted so bad so many weeks ago and all of a sudden all the anger she had towards
me melted away completely. I've done this with more than one of my children by the way
just because it's so fun to watch it unfold. As I said it's kind of a trivial illustration.
But don't you think there's a smiling God somewhere that looks at things that we go
through that says if they can only wait long enough they'll see why. If they can only wait
long enough they'll realize I had the very best in mind for them but it wasn't the right
time and it wasn't the right way. They just need to trust me with that. Do you think perhaps
that God means that in Romans chapter 8 verse 28? We know God causes all things to work
together for good. We can't explain it, we can't see it, and we get impatience in the
middle of that verse often but don't we know that God causes all things to work together
for good for those who love God? Those who are the called according to His purpose? And
the answer is yes. Some of us are upset because we know God is big enough and loving enough
to redeem a situation and to stop a situation but if He's big enough to stop a situation
then He's also big enough to redeem a situation right? We have to trust Him. You know when
I look at suffering and the idea of a good God allowing suffering to take place I think
sometimes people struggle the most with that because they think God is there and He's not
experiencing the same suffering we're experiencing until they remember that God did come down
on earth into a suffering, sinful, horrific, wicked world in the form of Jesus Christ.
And that Jesus Christ did walk through suffering and He did pay the price, the penalty of sin,
all of the sin of mankind was placed upon Him. Not just one man's sin or one woman's
sin but all of the sin of mankind was placed upon Him. God did come down, He did walk in
this world of suffering to identify with us and then to pay for that suffering and that
sin and then to overcome it all through His power and resurrection. We have a good God,
we have a suffering world but we have a good God who came into that suffering world.
The final promise is God will bring those who believe into a perfect eternity. Your
best life is not now but your best life is then on that day. 2nd Peter chapter 3 verse
13, but according to His promise we're looking for a new heaven and a new earth. I love the
emphasis there. We are looking for something different from what we have here. We're looking
for a new heaven and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. You know what you need
to do some day? You just need to read the descriptions of the future eternal earth that
God has for us after this short life and take them serious. You should just read about all
the glories of heaven, read the latter part of the book of Revelation, read what Jesus
promises in the book of John. When you read about all that God has for all those who put
their faith and trust in Him, it's hard to deny the existence of a good God when He has
these amazing plans for us for all time and all eternity. He's preparing something for
us so much greater than anything we can possibly fathom on this planet. I promise you what
He has for you will make you forget everything you've experienced here and now and God will
so settle the inequities of life, all the pain, all the suffering, all the seemingly
senseless tragedy. This new existence will swallow them up and overwhelm them and make
up for all the hardships we've seen on the planet. That's God's promise to us. It's
bigger than you can possibly imagine. It's above and beyond what we can ask or think.
Tim Keller said this, the ultimate defeat of evil and suffering is this, this new heaven
and new earth. It will not only be ended but so radically vanquished that what has happened
will only serve to make our future life and joy infinitely greater. And no one that's
passed from this life to that life is questioning the goodness of God and we shouldn't question
it here and now. He is good and He is God. And here's the great part of this promise.
Into this perfect world of eternity, into this perfect new heaven and new earth, He
has invited you. You. You have an invitation through Christ to a perfect world. You want
it now, but it's then that you're invited. That's the promise. He who believes in me,
Jesus says, has eternal life. And I'm looking forward to that day. I'm looking forward to
all that God is going to show us, all He's going to reveal to us. And I promise you that
you'll be past all the fear and frustration and disappointment and all the pain and suffering
and heartbreak. Beyond all that stuff is the perfection of the heavenly kingdom that He
has for us. And you're invited and you're encouraged to believe Him and join Him in
that. So what's the verdict? What's the verdict? How then do we live? Well, Solomon, who was
at the high place of understanding on his mountain, never found all the answers to his
questions. But basically said, we're going to have to learn to trust the God who has
revealed some of himself and some of the reasons for what he does. We're going to have to
trust him. Now I know in this room today, there are going to be some people who insist
on all the answers. No, that's not good enough for me. You'll say, I need all the answers.
I need them now. And may I just kind of poke you in the chest a little bit and say, even
if you heard what they were, you wouldn't understand them. Your mind and your comprehension
is not big enough for the things that God knows and that only God knows. Take a step
back and say, his ways are higher than mine. His ways are bigger than mine. Solomon concludes
it with this verse. The whole book is concluded in chapter 12 verse 13 and 14. The conclusion
when everything has been heard is, fear God and keep His commandments because this applies
to every person for God will bring every act to judgment. Everything which is hidden, whether
it is good or evil. In the end, Simon says, I'm going to have to trust him. He's a good
God. He's trustworthy. I'm putting my confidence in him. And I want you to do that today. I'm
going to give you three invitations today that are important to our life. I want you
to consider what we're talking about here today. Go home, read through your Bible, maybe
some of these passages that we've looked at today and reconcile that in your heart. God,
I don't understand how this all works, but I believe that you're a good God. And that
in the end, I will see what I can't see right now. What an incredible step of faith that
is. Today it may be that you've never taken the step to trust Jesus Christ. God came into
suffering by becoming man. That's called the incarnation. He walked on this planet in suffering.
He suffered on the cross for us and now offers the gift of eternal life, forgiveness of sin
and the promise of this great new world we talked about. If you've never made the decision
of trusting Jesus personally for your forgiveness of sin to be your Lord and Savior today, stop
by our decision station. That's my first invitation. Stop there and talk to someone and say, I
want to know that I have a relationship with this God who's creating new heaven and new
earth. I want to know Him. Second invitation is if you're a guest, I'd love to see you
in the guest reception room just outside the center exit doors and across the hallway.
There I'll share a few things with you about our church. I have a couple of invitations
to give you to next steps. Thirdly, I want to ask you to invite someone to come back
with you next week. You know, next week I'm dealing with the subject of is hell real?
How can a good God create a hell in which there is eternal punishment and separation?
That's a big question that someone wonders about. Is hell real? Would you stand with
me as we pray? Father, I want to thank you so much today that you are a good God and
that your goodness pursues us. It comes after us. And oh, we need your goodness. We need
to know you that way. We need to receive your goodness and grace. Father today, thank you
that you have given us a brilliant light of your goodness and your love for us in the
middle of a dark, dark world. And Father today, I pray that each one of us will grapple personally
with who you are and what you've done for us. And they will make the personal decision
of placing their trust and faith in you, Lord Jesus, as Lord and Savior and Master today.
We believe in our hearts. I thank you for this in Jesus' name. Amen. God bless you.