Answering the Question of Evil Part 1
"Why do I face trouble?"
I remember speaking with a dear lady in Brooklyn several years ago. I approached her on the street and tried to begin a conversation about spiritual things. She was not interested in changing her opinion about God. She thought God was evil and did even want to hear what I had to say about God’s goodness in conquering evil. In listening to her story I realized that she had faced more evil than I will ever even see. She was one of the few survivors of a Nazi prison camp. She showed me the number tattooed on her arm and with a snarling look stormed away in disgust. She was determined to remain bitter at God and the world for how humanity had treated her.
Although I realize her plight, I wish she would have given me ten more minutes of time not just to listen but to share more about another individual from the Jewish people who suffered greatly in life and was able to come out on the other side a better person full of faith and contentment in Who God is. That person is Job.
One of my favorite parks to jog in here
in NYC is just a block or two away from where our church meets. In that park is a statue of this same Bible
character. This sculpture was donated
by local residents and is made by Nathan Rapaport, a Polish born man who fled
Nazi atrocity and eventually immigrated to NY.
The statue was made as a memorial of the holocaust on the twentieth
anniversary of the Nation of Israel. It represents the great suffering that the
Jewish people endured during the holocaust. Rapaport saw the correlation
between the horrific sufferings of life and the biblical character of Job.
Part of Job's sorrow comes from the fact that he started with so much! Look at the great pinnacle from which Job fell.
He was extremely wealthy. He owned great property and livestock.[2] This was the literal stock market of the ancient world. In fact he was one of the richest men of his day. He would have made it to the cover of Forbes magazine. And yet, his financial blessing did not come in expense of his physical health. He enjoyed a sharp mind and physical well being.
His blessing went deeper than his wallet. Job was very well respected as a man of wisdom and power. He mentions that when he spoke in the gate (similar to our city hall) everyone was quiet to listen to his words. Job was one that they respected and wanted to hear.[3]
And yet Job’s fortunes went even deeper still. Job was a godly family man. What a beautiful picture is painted in the first chapter of a loving father and his grown children. He had ten children in all - 7 boys and 3 girls, a good round number. It seems that each year the family would get together on each of the children’s birthdays for a large celebration rejoicing with that individual in the family. What a wonderful home to be a part of! And yet after every birthday party, Job would offer special sacrifices for each member just in case they had said or did something even in their heart against God. He was preoccupied with pleasing God with all his heart!
Job’s integrity was unquestioned. The press could bring out nothing from his closet to impugn his character. He was a godly father a godly husband, a godly neighbor. What a great example. What a great life!
Job’s Fall
But then everything went wrong. In a day, Job lost everything. “It’s a Wonderful Life,” is nothing compared to Job’s bad day.
Let's read this tragedy and let it sink in:
What a horrible day. If you ever feel like your day is the worst of world history, read Job chapter 1 and you will have to admit that your day was a picnic. And yet, what a great response by Job! He does not blame God, he blesses God. Soon he curses the day he is born, but he never curses God.
Things get even worse. To add insult to injury, the next day Satan plagues Job with oozing sores all over his body. There is nowhere that he can gain comfort – he can’t find rest sitting or lying or standing. What a test.
The one person left alive, Job’s wife, gives him horrible advice–“curse God and die.” You can see why this is such a practical book dealing with the issue of trouble in life. Job has not just one tragedy, but a tragedy in every area of life where we experience these tragedies. Tragedy in family, in health, in finance/possessions, with close relatives, with foreign invasion are all experience by Job in one day.
Now you know the story. How can we learn from this book then? If you look at the remainder of the book you will find it is made up of several conversations. There are conversations between Satan and God, between Job and his friends, and between Job and God. In these conversations, God wrestles with His people and with the enemy of His people regarding the problem of evil. And it is in those conversations that we find some answers to our question of the problem of evil. Let’s look at five answers.
So, in answer to the question of evil, one answer is that Satan is evil and causes the evil in the world. Just as God is love, Satan is hate. He causes as much evil as he is able.
I neglected to share with you one important point in our story. Satan was the one that requested that this evil be done and he was the one that orchestrated and perpetrated the evil.
It is so interesting that when evil things happen or when tragedies occur people get mad at God. There is no reference to the possibility of an evil being as the primary cause of these things. Yet on the other hand, when something goes good they make sure they get the credit (not God). In Job’s case, Satan asked God to allow him to perform evil. God is not the Author of the evil.
When you see evil God is not the author of it. That event is written by someone else. It is written by Satan. Last year, I was so disgusted with a response given by a local Rabbi to a horrible event when a young Orthodox Jewish boy was slaughtered by a neighbor. The Rabbi was being interviewed by the local news and said “We don’t know why God does these things.”
And so first of all we have to put the blame where it lies. The blame lies at the feet of the men that perpetrated the crime, the organization that taught and enabled them . . . and the evil one - Satan who put it in their hearts. God did not perpetrate evil.
From here we do need to ask and answer more questions. For some of you this may be enough. But there is another issue. One of my professors in seminary described it as “watermelon theology.”[5] With some truths in Scripture, you can believe any two of three truths, but the difficulty comes from trying to grasp all three. You can carry one under one arm, the other under another arm but it is difficult to carry that third one.
In this case, the first watermelon is the problem of evil. We all experience the effects of evil. The second truth is that God is good and does no evil. And the third truth (watermelon) is that God is all powerful. We believe all three. But it is difficult to hold all three of those watermelons at the same time; you have to drop one to pick up the other two. So, some deny the first fact – some streams of Buddhism deny that evil is a reality. Evil is a myth. I find that hard to swallow. Others deny God’s power. They say that there is evil in the world and God is working at eradicating it. This view is popularized by Rabi Kushner in his book “When Bad Things Happen to Good People.” The seventh chapter is entitled “God can’t do everything but He can do some important things.” This is a very weak view of God. If we remove this leg of the three legged stool we will fall on our backs. A limited God is not the God of the Bible.
Others drop the third watermelon. They deny that God is good. All too often people take this view. Instead of thinking of other ways to get all three watermelons in their arms, they drop God’s goodness and refuse to believe. Let me suggest a few more answers from the book of Job to help you
Job’s friends quickly attend his side and bring up this option through a huge chunk of the book. Actually from chapter 4-30 there is this back and forth and back and forth of Job's friends saying he is wicked and Job maintaining his integrity.
It eventually becomes a difficult read. They are not comforting him at all they are just gloating over him and trying to belittle him. Listen to one “friend.”
How insensitive! He refers to the children of the foolish and the crops of the foolish and how they will all fall. He is calling Job a fool to his face and maintaining that his foolishness is what has caused his calamity. But Job keeps searching his heart and stating – I don’t think this is the problem, men. I really am trying to live before the Lord in the right way. I’m not perfect, but I’ve searched my heart and there is nothing between me and my Creator (See Job chapter 31).
This is a possible answer to the problem of evil in a situation. This was not the answer in Job’s case. These men were stepping on a friend when he was down. I like Job’s response to these friends - "I have heard many such things; miserable comforters are you all” (Job 16:2 ESV). They were wrong in this case. And at the end of the story, God confronts these men for their lack of help and “misdiagnosis” of the problem. He tells Job to pray for them.
Although they were wrong, this does point to a valuable answer with regard to the problem of evil. Let’s look at two principles from this answer that will help you understand, at times, why evil is evident in the world and in our own lives because of sin.
Our first parents – Adam and Eve, declared war on God by disobeying His one command. After that time, we are all born at war with God and under the same effect of that sin. We all face death. The result is that the effect of this sin has spread to all of creation. The Bible teaches that all of creation is now groaning under this curse of sin like a woman in childbirth, longing for the end.
The story of the Bible is the story of how God is erasing the effects of original sin by the death of Jesus Christ on the cross. God came in flesh to take upon Himself the punishment of that sin and every sin in order that humanity can enjoy fresh fellowship with God again–just like the Garden of Eden! Those of you who have gone through our “Summary of the Bible’s Message” will remember this principle. God is bringing everything back to his perfect order.
Much of the evil we see in the world–disease, natural disasters, are not caused because God is mad now. They are the distorted, broken world that God is redeeming. At the end of History all will be made new and this principle will be revoked.
The principle of sowing and reaping.
Perhaps it would be good to consider that the sowing and reaping principle is actually a loving thing for God to orchestrate. As a loving Father, God allows pain to keep us from touching a fire in the future. Parents realize that the school of hard knocks is often the only way a child will learn a lesson. We don’t want them to fall. But when they fall, they realize they better not run full force in the house. If God never allowed us to feel the consequences of bad choices, then we would always do those bad things and destroy our lives. Pain is one of the best gifts of God to humanity.
We have considered the first two answers to the question of evil. In the next post we will consider three other valuable answers from the book of Job.
One of the reasons I love living in NYC
is meeting people with diverse backgrounds.
Each person’s life could fill a library of stories and many of these
lives intersect and cross with so many other lives that it is like a tapestry
of world history intersecting in one place and time. One part of that tapestry is dark. As we view some strands of life, we connect with some of the worst parts of world history.
I remember speaking with a dear lady in Brooklyn several years ago. I approached her on the street and tried to begin a conversation about spiritual things. She was not interested in changing her opinion about God. She thought God was evil and did even want to hear what I had to say about God’s goodness in conquering evil. In listening to her story I realized that she had faced more evil than I will ever even see. She was one of the few survivors of a Nazi prison camp. She showed me the number tattooed on her arm and with a snarling look stormed away in disgust. She was determined to remain bitter at God and the world for how humanity had treated her.
Although I realize her plight, I wish she would have given me ten more minutes of time not just to listen but to share more about another individual from the Jewish people who suffered greatly in life and was able to come out on the other side a better person full of faith and contentment in Who God is. That person is Job.
What does Job have to do with the problem of evil?
Why do bad things happen? Several answers are given in the book of Job
so we will use the story as a guide through this chapter and the next to help
us answer this very difficult question.
Just as Rapaport used the biblical figure of Job to epitomize sorrow,
you can use this Biblical character to bring you out of your sorrow and pain of
the past to look to your future in a positive way.
Before we do we must understand who Job
was and what was so difficult about His story.
Job’s Success
Job’s Success
Part of Job's sorrow comes from the fact that he started with so much! Look at the great pinnacle from which Job fell.
He was extremely wealthy. He owned great property and livestock.[2] This was the literal stock market of the ancient world. In fact he was one of the richest men of his day. He would have made it to the cover of Forbes magazine. And yet, his financial blessing did not come in expense of his physical health. He enjoyed a sharp mind and physical well being.
His blessing went deeper than his wallet. Job was very well respected as a man of wisdom and power. He mentions that when he spoke in the gate (similar to our city hall) everyone was quiet to listen to his words. Job was one that they respected and wanted to hear.[3]
And yet Job’s fortunes went even deeper still. Job was a godly family man. What a beautiful picture is painted in the first chapter of a loving father and his grown children. He had ten children in all - 7 boys and 3 girls, a good round number. It seems that each year the family would get together on each of the children’s birthdays for a large celebration rejoicing with that individual in the family. What a wonderful home to be a part of! And yet after every birthday party, Job would offer special sacrifices for each member just in case they had said or did something even in their heart against God. He was preoccupied with pleasing God with all his heart!
Job’s integrity was unquestioned. The press could bring out nothing from his closet to impugn his character. He was a godly father a godly husband, a godly neighbor. What a great example. What a great life!
Job’s Fall
But then everything went wrong. In a day, Job lost everything. “It’s a Wonderful Life,” is nothing compared to Job’s bad day.
Let's read this tragedy and let it sink in:
“Now on the
day when his sons and his daughters were eating and drinking wine in their
oldest brother's house[4], a messenger came to Job and said, ‘The oxen
were plowing and the donkeys feeding beside them, and the Sabeans attacked and
took them. They also slew the servants with the edge of the sword, and I alone
have escaped to tell you.’ While he was
still speaking, another also came and said, ‘The fire of God fell from heaven
and burned up the sheep and the servants and consumed them, and I alone have
escaped to tell you.’ While he was still
speaking, another also came and said, ‘The Chaldeans formed three bands and
made a raid on the camels and took them and slew the servants with the edge of
the sword, and I alone have escaped to tell you.’ While he was still speaking, another also
came and said, ‘Your sons and your daughters were eating and drinking wine in
their oldest brother's house, and behold, a great wind came from across the
wilderness and struck the four corners of the house, and it fell on the young
people and they died, and I alone have escaped to tell you.’ Then Job arose and tore his robe and shaved
his head, and he fell to the ground and worshiped. He said, ‘Naked I came from my mother's womb,
and naked I shall return there. The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away. Blessed
be the name of the LORD.’ Through all this Job did not sin nor did he blame God”
(Job 1:13-22).
What a horrible day. If you ever feel like your day is the worst of world history, read Job chapter 1 and you will have to admit that your day was a picnic. And yet, what a great response by Job! He does not blame God, he blesses God. Soon he curses the day he is born, but he never curses God.
Things get even worse. To add insult to injury, the next day Satan plagues Job with oozing sores all over his body. There is nowhere that he can gain comfort – he can’t find rest sitting or lying or standing. What a test.
The one person left alive, Job’s wife, gives him horrible advice–“curse God and die.” You can see why this is such a practical book dealing with the issue of trouble in life. Job has not just one tragedy, but a tragedy in every area of life where we experience these tragedies. Tragedy in family, in health, in finance/possessions, with close relatives, with foreign invasion are all experience by Job in one day.
The Rest of the Book
Now you know the story. How can we learn from this book then? If you look at the remainder of the book you will find it is made up of several conversations. There are conversations between Satan and God, between Job and his friends, and between Job and God. In these conversations, God wrestles with His people and with the enemy of His people regarding the problem of evil. And it is in those conversations that we find some answers to our question of the problem of evil. Let’s look at five answers.
- Satan is a possible cause of evil (The Author’s Perspective Job 1-2).
- Sin is a possible cause of evil (The Friend’s Perspective Job 2:11 - 31:40).
- God uses evil for good (Job’s Perspective Job 23:10)
- God is Great (Job 32-41).
- Evil is temporary (Job 42).
Answer 1 – Satan Is a Possible Cause (The Author’s
Perspective Job 1-2:10).
So, in answer to the question of evil, one answer is that Satan is evil and causes the evil in the world. Just as God is love, Satan is hate. He causes as much evil as he is able.
I neglected to share with you one important point in our story. Satan was the one that requested that this evil be done and he was the one that orchestrated and perpetrated the evil.
It is so interesting that when evil things happen or when tragedies occur people get mad at God. There is no reference to the possibility of an evil being as the primary cause of these things. Yet on the other hand, when something goes good they make sure they get the credit (not God). In Job’s case, Satan asked God to allow him to perform evil. God is not the Author of the evil.
We have to realize in life and in death
(for all of us will face death), there is no evil on earth at which God is the
first or primary cause. He permits the
agents of evil to do their bidding and uses it for His good (as we will see
soon). Read these verses
“Let no one say when he is tempted, ‘I am being
tempted by God,’ for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no
one” (James 1:13).
“Your eyes
are too pure to approve evil, and You cannot look on wickedness with favor” (Habakkuk 1:13).
“For you are not a God who delights in wickedness;
evil may not dwell with you” (Psalm 5:4).
When you see evil God is not the author of it. That event is written by someone else. It is written by Satan. Last year, I was so disgusted with a response given by a local Rabbi to a horrible event when a young Orthodox Jewish boy was slaughtered by a neighbor. The Rabbi was being interviewed by the local news and said “We don’t know why God does these things.”
No!
I can’t allow you to say that. A
sick, twisted, depraved, man filled with sin and evil did that, filled with the
motivation of Satan himself! That is the
explanation. God did not . . . evil did.
And so first of all we have to put the blame where it lies. The blame lies at the feet of the men that perpetrated the crime, the organization that taught and enabled them . . . and the evil one - Satan who put it in their hearts. God did not perpetrate evil.
From here we do need to ask and answer more questions. For some of you this may be enough. But there is another issue. One of my professors in seminary described it as “watermelon theology.”[5] With some truths in Scripture, you can believe any two of three truths, but the difficulty comes from trying to grasp all three. You can carry one under one arm, the other under another arm but it is difficult to carry that third one.
In this case, the first watermelon is the problem of evil. We all experience the effects of evil. The second truth is that God is good and does no evil. And the third truth (watermelon) is that God is all powerful. We believe all three. But it is difficult to hold all three of those watermelons at the same time; you have to drop one to pick up the other two. So, some deny the first fact – some streams of Buddhism deny that evil is a reality. Evil is a myth. I find that hard to swallow. Others deny God’s power. They say that there is evil in the world and God is working at eradicating it. This view is popularized by Rabi Kushner in his book “When Bad Things Happen to Good People.” The seventh chapter is entitled “God can’t do everything but He can do some important things.” This is a very weak view of God. If we remove this leg of the three legged stool we will fall on our backs. A limited God is not the God of the Bible.
Others drop the third watermelon. They deny that God is good. All too often people take this view. Instead of thinking of other ways to get all three watermelons in their arms, they drop God’s goodness and refuse to believe. Let me suggest a few more answers from the book of Job to help you
Answer 2 - Sin is a possible cause (The Friends’ Perspective
Job 2:11 - 31:40).
Job’s friends quickly attend his side and bring up this option through a huge chunk of the book. Actually from chapter 4-30 there is this back and forth and back and forth of Job's friends saying he is wicked and Job maintaining his integrity.
It eventually becomes a difficult read. They are not comforting him at all they are just gloating over him and trying to belittle him. Listen to one “friend.”
"I have seen the foolish taking root, and I
cursed his abode immediately. His sons
are far from safety, they are even oppressed in the gate, and there is no
deliverer. His harvest the hungry devour
and take it to a place of thorns,
and the schemer is eager for their wealth.
For affliction does not come from the dust, nor does trouble sprout from
the ground, for man is born for trouble, as sparks fly upward” (Job 5:3-7).
How insensitive! He refers to the children of the foolish and the crops of the foolish and how they will all fall. He is calling Job a fool to his face and maintaining that his foolishness is what has caused his calamity. But Job keeps searching his heart and stating – I don’t think this is the problem, men. I really am trying to live before the Lord in the right way. I’m not perfect, but I’ve searched my heart and there is nothing between me and my Creator (See Job chapter 31).
This is a possible answer to the problem of evil in a situation. This was not the answer in Job’s case. These men were stepping on a friend when he was down. I like Job’s response to these friends - "I have heard many such things; miserable comforters are you all” (Job 16:2 ESV). They were wrong in this case. And at the end of the story, God confronts these men for their lack of help and “misdiagnosis” of the problem. He tells Job to pray for them.
Although they were wrong, this does point to a valuable answer with regard to the problem of evil. Let’s look at two principles from this answer that will help you understand, at times, why evil is evident in the world and in our own lives because of sin.
The principle of original sin
God made a perfect world. What a great thought that is! In His perfect world no one mistreated
anyone. Imagine a business world where
no one is mistreated. Imagine a nursery
or a third grade class with no bickering.
That was the original plan. There
was no death or parting. There were no
tears. There was joy and only joy. There was no cancer. If you read the end of the story (Revelation
21:1-7), God will make all things like this again. However, there is this big gap of time where
sin is reeking devastation. This is the
principle of the original sin.
Adam and Eve were made without sin, but
with a choice to sin. They had the
possibility for rebellion. You know the
event where this happened in Biblical history.
God made a perfect garden of harmony and peace – peace between all of
humanity and God. But humanity chose to
rebel against God’s original command in the garden (eat of the fruit); they
fell. This fall had an impact on all of
God’s creation.
Our first parents – Adam and Eve, declared war on God by disobeying His one command. After that time, we are all born at war with God and under the same effect of that sin. We all face death. The result is that the effect of this sin has spread to all of creation. The Bible teaches that all of creation is now groaning under this curse of sin like a woman in childbirth, longing for the end.
The story of the Bible is the story of how God is erasing the effects of original sin by the death of Jesus Christ on the cross. God came in flesh to take upon Himself the punishment of that sin and every sin in order that humanity can enjoy fresh fellowship with God again–just like the Garden of Eden! Those of you who have gone through our “Summary of the Bible’s Message” will remember this principle. God is bringing everything back to his perfect order.
Much of the evil we see in the world–disease, natural disasters, are not caused because God is mad now. They are the distorted, broken world that God is redeeming. At the end of History all will be made new and this principle will be revoked.
Consider
also the principle of reaping the effects of sowing a sinful lifestyle. This is a definite possibility. Of course we have to realize that this is not
always the problem. As in the case of
Job, just because you or I are going through a difficulty, it does not mean
that we are paying for the results of our sin.
At times, God has other purposes for trials and tragedies just like we
will see in the next post.
However,
at times, you are paying for the results of your personal sin. This is the principle of sowing and
reaping. If you sow wickedness you will
reap evil.
“Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for
whatever a man sows, this he will also reap.
For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap
corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap
eternal life” (Galatians 6:7-8).
Reaping Pain in Love
Perhaps it would be good to consider that the sowing and reaping principle is actually a loving thing for God to orchestrate. As a loving Father, God allows pain to keep us from touching a fire in the future. Parents realize that the school of hard knocks is often the only way a child will learn a lesson. We don’t want them to fall. But when they fall, they realize they better not run full force in the house. If God never allowed us to feel the consequences of bad choices, then we would always do those bad things and destroy our lives. Pain is one of the best gifts of God to humanity.
We have considered the first two answers to the question of evil. In the next post we will consider three other valuable answers from the book of Job.
[1] Bunyan’s
description: “As the sinner is awakened
about his lost condition, there ariseth in his soul many fears and doubts, and
discouraging apprehensions, which all of them get together, and settle in this
place . . .”
[2] “His possessions also were 7,000 sheep, 3,000
camels, 500 yoke of oxen, 500 female donkeys, and very many servants; and that
man was the greatest of all the men of the east” (Job 1:3).
[3] "When I went out to the gate of the city, when
I took my seat in the square, the young men saw me and hid themselves, and the
old men arose and stood. The
princes stopped talking and put their hands on their mouths; the voice
of the nobles was hushed, and their tongue stuck to their palate” (Job 29:7-10).
[4]
Remember we mentioned the birthday bash for each child – this is what was going
on most likely – horrible time for a tragedy!
Thanks for this. In 2004 we were serving the Lord in Florida and decided to ride out Hurricane Ivan. The next morning it "dawned" on us that we had lost essentially all of our stuff. Figuring that God was trying to teach us something "out of the whirlwind", I read through Job every day for more than a month and it became very precious to us. We grew convinced that the Lord had better things for us and adopted Ecclesiastes 7:8 as our family verse. The Lord used the incident to move us to Virginia where I currently find myself serving as one of three elders in a congregation that is nearly 40 years younger than I am. Back then Job provided me with a sermon than a sermon series and this week I'm in the process of teaching a refreshed series on "Sitting in the Ashes with Job". Your posts have been refreshing and encouraging. Thank you! BTW, I remember Dr. Bell's "watermelons" from my days at BJU. I also attended Mount Calvary my first year there. When were you there?
ReplyDeleteThanks Ron for your encouraging post! I used it Sunday while teaching through this material in our LIFE groups class. Some of God's roads are difficult to traverse, but they are always best and but a pilgrim's walk to the best destination conceivable! I was at Mt. Calv from 2000-2004ish. Ordained there in 2004 and deeply indebted to them for philosophy of ministry/preaching. Hey, I used to live in VA - Roanoke. Great place to live = ) Grace and peace to you!
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