Participants:
Series Code: IIWSS
Program Code: IIWSS025007S
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00:14 >>Eric Flickinger: Welcome to "Sabbath School" brought 00:16 to you by It Is Written. 00:17 Glad to have you with us this week. 00:18 We are looking at lesson number seven, "The Problem of Evil." 00:23 How do we reconcile the problem of evil with a God who is God? 00:28 Well, that's what we're looking at this week. 00:30 We're glad that you're here. 00:32 Let's begin with prayer. 00:33 Father, we ask that you will guide our discussion, 00:36 guide our study today as we look more deeply into your character 00:40 and your love for humanity. 00:42 We ask your blessing on our time together and we thank you. 00:45 In Jesus's name, amen. 00:47 Well, in addition to being glad that you are here, we are also 00:50 glad that the author of this quarter's "Sabbath School" 00:53 lesson is here. 00:55 That is John Peckham. 00:56 He is an associate editor of the "Adventist Review" 00:59 and also a research professor at the Theological Seminary 01:02 at Andrews University. 01:03 John, welcome back once again. 01:05 >>John Peckham: Thank you. 01:06 >>Eric: So this week we're looking at the problem of evil. 01:08 We're getting down into the meat of things. 01:11 We've been kind of leading this direction. 01:13 Now we're dealing with the problem of evil. 01:15 We have this concept that God is sovereign. 01:20 He's all-powerful, He's all-knowing, 01:22 He's all-loving, He's all justice, 01:24 He's all these things, 01:26 and yet we have the existence of evil. 01:30 How do we deal with this? 01:31 >>John: Yeah, there's a lot of approaches to the problem 01:34 of evil, right? 01:36 And the problem of evil is typically laid out this way. 01:37 It's typically based on these omni-characteristics of God. 01:41 God is all-powerful, God is entirely good, 01:43 He's all-knowing, 01:44 and yet there's evil in the world. 01:46 And many philosophers, including many atheists, have said these 01:49 things just don't fit together, right? 01:51 One of these four promises must be false. 01:54 Either God is not entirely good, or God is not all powerful, 01:58 or God is not all knowing, or there's not evil in the world. 02:01 And they say, "Well, obviously there's evil in the world." 02:03 Therefore, the argument for a long time was God 02:06 does not exist. 02:07 There's a lot of ways of trying to resolve this problem. 02:11 There are some who are willing to say things like, 02:13 "Oh, maybe God just isn't powerful enough to deal 02:14 with evil." 02:15 But that's not a live option. 02:17 For me, based on what the Bible teaches, Jeremiah 32:17 says, 02:22 "There's nothing too hard for the Lord." 02:24 It's clear he's all powerful. 02:26 It's not a live option to say, "Oh, he's not really good 02:28 or he's caught by surprise." 02:30 So, there must be some other ways of addressing this problem. 02:35 And scripture actually presents a number of different ways. 02:38 Doesn't answer all of our questions, but provides 02:41 a framework that we're gonna be unpacking not just this week, 02:43 but in the weeks to come about these pieces of the puzzle that 02:46 help us have a framework for understanding how there 02:49 could be so much evil and suffering in a world where 02:53 God is sovereign and God is the ruler. 02:55 >>Eric: So, in order to start unpacking this, I wanna read 02:58 a Bible verse here and we're going to look 02:59 at several of them. 03:01 But from the book of Job, 03:02 chapter 30 and verse number 26, 03:06 it says, "But when I looked for good, evil came to me; 03:10 and when I waited for light, then came darkness." 03:15 So how does this verse help us to understand the presence 03:18 of evil in the world? 03:19 >>John: Yeah, this and many other verses in the Bible show 03:22 us that the problem of evil is not just an academic question. 03:25 It's not just a modern or contemporary question. 03:28 The problem of evil is stated directly in the Bible itself, 03:32 even by faithful servants of God. 03:34 This is Job who's a faithful servant of God 03:37 who's undergoing really unthinkable suffering 03:40 and unthinkable loss in the story. 03:42 He's lost family members. 03:43 He's lost prosperity. 03:46 He's even afflicted himself and this is all coming 03:49 from an enemy, but Job doesn't know this. 03:51 And his friends are telling him, "God must be doing this to you. 03:55 He must be judging you because these things 03:56 wouldn't be happening to you unless you deserve them 03:59 because God is just." 04:00 But Job knows that's not the case. 04:01 He doesn't deserve what is happening to him. 04:03 So he's wrestling with this. 04:05 And he never comes to the point to actually curse God or sin. 04:09 But he has big questions. 04:11 "I looked for good and evil came." 04:13 In other places, he says that it's almost like God 04:17 has become cruel to him. 04:18 So he's wrestling with this problem. 04:20 And many biblical authors wrestle with this problem 04:24 throughout scripture. 04:25 You have the psalmist in Psalm 73 who looks around 04:29 and he looks at the prosperity of the wicked. 04:30 Things seem to go well for them. 04:32 And those who are following God, they seem to be downtrodden. 04:35 And he says, "Where is justice?" 04:37 This troubles him deeply. 04:39 And I would say to you, if you're watching this, 04:41 if you've wrestled with this problem, you're not alone. 04:44 This is a major problem in scripture. 04:47 You have the innocent suffering. 04:49 You have John the Baptist who Jesus calls a prophet 04:54 greater than any other prophet or at least there was no other 04:56 prophet greater than him and yet we know the end of his story. 05:00 First he's languishing in prison for his preaching, 05:03 preparing the way for the Messiah. 05:05 He languishes in prison so much so that he wonders if Jesus 05:08 really is the Messiah after all. 05:10 And in the end, in this life, he is beheaded. 05:13 And so suffering often comes. 05:15 Darkness often comes especially to those who are following God. 05:20 And this is again not just an academic issue, 05:23 not just a contemporary problem, it's a problem the authors 05:26 of scripture themselves are wrestling with. 05:28 >>Eric: So we've touched here in the book of Job 05:32 on that and over in Psalms as well, but if we come over 05:34 to the New Testament, you mentioned we're dealing 05:36 with this now. 05:37 It was an issue back in the Old Testament. 05:39 In the New Testament, even with Jesus's cry of abandonment 05:44 on the cross, "My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me?" 05:47 How do we understand this, the relationship between God 05:51 and suffering, between God and evil? 05:53 What does that look like? 05:55 >>John: Yeah, yeah, there's at least a couple of things 05:57 that I would want to say here clearly. 05:58 First of all, you can see from this case and many others 06:01 that the theology of Job's friends was dead wrong. 06:04 Their theology was, if you're suffering, 06:07 you must deserve it. 06:08 If you're suffering because God is all-powerful and God is just, 06:11 that must mean that God is judging you or God has brought 06:14 this against you. 06:15 We know clearly that's not the case in the book of Job. 06:18 It was not the case for John the Baptist. 06:20 And ultimately, the ultimate example of innocent suffering 06:25 is Jesus. 06:26 He had done no sin or evil His entire life. 06:30 There was no sin in Him. 06:32 He was utterly perfect. 06:33 And yet, there He is at the end, suffering and even dying 06:38 on the cross. 06:40 The greatest suffering inflicted on Him is not even the physical 06:44 suffering, but the sins of the weight of the world 06:48 on His shoulders, this is the ultimate unjust suffering. 06:54 And so we can see very clearly that we cannot make the mistake 06:58 of Job's friends of thinking if someone is suffering, 07:01 then they must have deserved it. 07:02 And we know that in this world, the righteous often suffer. 07:07 This world is not fair. 07:10 But it's not because God is unfair, it's because there's 07:12 much more going on behind the scenes. 07:15 Evil and injustice has been introduced 07:17 from elsewhere. 07:19 But before we leave Jesus cry of dereliction, there is hope 07:22 even in that cry because when Jesus says, 07:26 "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?" 07:27 He's actually quoting from a psalm 07:28 and it's Psalm 22. 07:30 And that psalm ends in triumph. 07:32 So even though He's crying, why have you forsaken me? 07:34 He knows in the end there will be triumph 07:37 because God is good. 07:38 And this is true also for those who suffer innocently 07:40 throughout scripture. 07:42 It was not the end of the story for John the Baptist, it was not 07:44 the end of the story for Christ. 07:45 It will not be the end of the story for anyone who 07:48 suffers innocently, anybody who is in Christ by faith will rise 07:51 again even as He did and God will make all things right. 07:55 Now that still leaves us with questions in the meantime, 07:57 but we have a hope. 07:58 >>Eric: And we're gonna be continuing to delve 08:01 into that as you've mentioned. 08:02 I wanna touch for a minute or two here, maybe a little bit 08:05 longer, on this idea, the skeptical theist perspective. 08:09 It kind of emphasizes human limitations 08:12 and understanding God's reasons. 08:14 How can that be both comforting and challenging in the context 08:17 of this problem of evil? 08:19 >>John: Yeah, so the skeptical theist is a way of responding 08:23 to the problem of evil that is actually probably not very well 08:26 named because if you hear the phrase skeptical theist, 08:29 you probably think this is about a theist, somebody who believes 08:32 in a creator God, but they're skeptical about Him. 08:35 But that's actually not where the skepticism is. 08:37 The skeptical theist is skeptical that you and I, 08:41 with our relatively small brains are capable of being 08:45 in a position of understanding why God has done what he 08:49 has done or why God has refrained from doing things 08:53 that we might think that He should do. 08:54 And the skeptical theist says, "You know what? 08:56 "We're not in a position to make those kinds of judgments. 08:59 "There are many things we don't know and we shouldn't expect 09:03 to actually be in that kind of a position." 09:06 And so they would say something like, "Even if we don't know any 09:10 "of the reasons that God might have for the way 09:14 "that he is acting in the world or refraining from acting, 09:17 "it doesn't follow from that that he doesn't 09:18 have good reasons." 09:20 Just because I can't see those good reasons doesn't mean 09:23 that He doesn't have them. 09:25 And one particular philosopher, he uses an example of these bugs 09:28 that in some parts of America 09:30 are called noceums because they're so small, 09:31 you know, noceum, but they bite you. 09:35 And the fact that you can't see them doesn't mean 09:37 they're not there, right? 09:38 They're really there. 09:40 And he says, similarly, the fact that you can't always see God's 09:42 reasons doesn't mean they're not there. 09:44 And actually, I would suggest that this line of thought 09:46 actually has biblical roots, at least a version of it. 09:50 I wouldn't say everything they say, but a version of it is 09:53 embedded in many stories, including the story of Job. 09:55 Like the way God responds to Job in Job 38, for instance, 10:00 is very instructive here. 10:01 >>Eric: So let's look at Job 38 and verse number 2. 10:05 In Job 38, verse 2 it says, "Who is this who darkens counsel 10:09 by words without knowledge?" 10:11 It's like a well-known verse. 10:12 >>John: It's a well-known verse. 10:14 And this is God who's responding to Job because Job has been 10:17 raising all kinds of questions for what was happening to him. 10:19 Job was suffering innocently. 10:21 He didn't deserve it, but he actually is so concerned and his 10:23 friends are saying it's God who did this. 10:25 He's like, well, I would like to have an audience with God. 10:29 I'd almost even like to bring God on trial to answer for this. 10:33 And so he calls on God throughout the book of Job, 10:35 mostly a dialogue with Job's friends. 10:37 But finally at the end, God appears out of the whirlwind 10:40 and he says this in one translation, 10:42 one translation says it this way. 10:44 It's like a contemporary English Version, I think. 10:45 It says, God says to Job, "Why do you talk so much 10:50 when you know so little?" 10:52 In other words, it's like, you don't know what you don't know. 10:56 There was so much more going behind the scenes that you don't 10:59 see that it really should bring him to humility. 11:03 And that was his response. 11:04 He repents in dust and ashes, recognizes I have spoken 11:09 of that which I did not understand. 11:10 And it's a wonderful lesson for us as well. 11:12 Even in our darkest times when we can't see away, we can't see 11:15 the light, we should remember there are many things that we 11:19 don't know. 11:21 And we shouldn't make the mistake of Job's friends 11:23 who talked way too much about things they didn't know about. 11:26 >>Eric: Yeah, a lesson for us, hopefully one that we can learn. 11:30 We are looking at the problem of evil. 11:32 As I mentioned, we're getting right into the thick of some 11:35 of the things that people have big deep serious 11:37 questions about. 11:39 We have the quarterly, the lesson study, but we also 11:42 have a companion book that goes into greater detail. 11:45 deeper detail. 11:46 Tell us a little bit about what's in there. 11:48 >>John: Yeah, in that companion book, we walk through 11:52 multiple chapters that are laying out an approach 11:55 to the problem of evil that I call a theodicy of love, 11:57 but in very understandable, 11:59 accessible ways that you can actually share with somebody 12:02 who is wrestling with this problem. 12:04 It's the biggest problem that most people who are atheist 12:07 or agnostic about God, this is what they cite most commonly 12:12 for why they have trouble believing in God. 12:14 And so it is a huge question that demands not just pat 12:18 answers, but actually biblical and thorough answers 12:21 that provides a framework. 12:23 And I get a chance in the companion volume 12:25 to break that down. 12:26 And over multiple chapters, I lay out seven points over time 12:31 that add up to what I believe is a coherent way of approaching 12:34 this from the Bible. 12:35 >>Eric: So, very, very valuable book. 12:37 And if you know someone who might fall into that atheist 12:41 or agnostic or skeptical framework, this would be 12:46 a fantastic book. 12:47 I'm not gonna suggest plan A that you just buy the book 12:51 and give it to them. 12:52 Plan A, I'm gonna say you buy the book and you read it 12:54 yourself so that you can understand these concepts 12:57 and relate them to them. 12:58 Now, if you wanna buy them a copy of the book too, 13:00 God bless you, I don't think God's gonna fault you for that. 13:03 But don't go the easy route and not read it 13:05 and understand it yourself. 13:06 Pick that book up and you will be able to understand 13:09 the answers to these questions more clearly yourself 13:12 and be able to express them to those individuals that you come 13:16 in contact with and will help them to be able to understand 13:19 the answers to these questions as well. 13:21 You can find that book at itiswritten.shop. 13:24 Again, itiswritten.shop. 13:26 We're going to be back in just a moment as we continue our 13:29 journey through looking at the God of love and justice. 13:32 We'll be right back. 13:38 >>male announcer: More and more people are watching 13:40 It Is Written TV. 13:41 They're watching their favorite It Is Written programs, 13:45 listening to inspiring sermon series, and much more. 13:49 They're watching them here, here, and even here. 13:53 See for yourself why people are tuning to It Is Written TV 13:57 to watch their favorite Christian programs live 13:59 and on demand. 14:01 Watch It Is Written TV for free anytime on Roku, 14:04 Apple TV, and at itiswritten.tv. 14:08 ♪♪♪ 14:12 >>Eric: Welcome back to "Sabbath School" 14:14 brought to you by It Is Written. 14:16 We're looking at lesson number seven, 14:17 seven of 13, as we take a look at the God of love 14:21 and the God of justice. 14:23 And John, as we delve back into this, I wanna look 14:27 at the subject, the concept of free will. 14:29 And I'm going to read to you a quote from C. S. Lewis 14:32 that you mentioned in, let's see, this is Wednesday's 14:36 lesson, and it's about midway down the page. 14:39 It says this, here's what he writes: "Free will, though it 14:43 "makes evil possible, is also the only thing that makes 14:46 "possible any love or goodness or joy worth having. 14:50 "A world of automata--of creatures that work like 14:54 "machines--would hardly be worth creating. 14:57 "The happiness which God designs for His higher creatures is 15:01 "the happiness of being freely, voluntarily united to Him 15:05 "and to each other... 15:07 And for that they must be free." 15:10 So he's talking here a little bit about free will 15:16 and the concept of evil coexisting. 15:19 Unpack that for us. 15:20 >>John: Yeah, C.S. Lewis puts very eloquently an idea that is 15:24 held by many theologians and I think 15:26 it has very strong biblical basis. 15:28 We're actually gonna talk about the biblical basis for this 15:30 next week, in next week's lessons, that God grants 15:34 creatures free will, precisely because free will is 15:36 necessary for love. 15:39 But the issue with that is, if God grants creatures 15:41 free will, then it's not up to Him what they do 15:44 with that free will. 15:46 That means they can use that free will 15:47 to do evil things. 15:49 And this is actually put on the table. 15:51 It's been put on the table in scripture. 15:54 It's put on the table in the Christian tradition. 15:56 And in more recent decades, it was put on the table 15:58 in a very robust philosophical form by a Christian philosopher 16:03 by the name of Alvin Plantinga, a world-class philosopher, 16:06 and he laid this out, something called the free will defense. 16:08 And he takes that problem of evil we saw at the beginning, 16:11 how can God be all-powerful and entirely good 16:14 and all-knowing and yet there's evil in the world. 16:16 And he says, "Well, if God grants free will and he 16:19 "has a good reason for granting free will, then it's not up 16:22 to God whether evil is introduced." 16:25 And he lays that out in very precise arguments so strongly 16:30 that even most atheist philosophers have recognized 16:34 that the so-called logical problem of evil has been 16:36 resolved by the free will defense. 16:38 Now that doesn't necessarily make them believers of course 16:41 and they would say there's too much evil in the world they 16:43 move to another form of the problem called 16:45 the evidential problem of evil. 16:46 "Okay, maybe you can have some evil because of free will, 16:49 but why is there so much?" 16:50 But the reason I raise that is because this free will defense 16:53 is very important. 16:54 If we recognize that God grants creatures free will, 16:58 then that means there are gonna be some things 17:00 in the world that are not up to God to prevent. 17:03 In the same way that you can't make a square circle, God can't 17:07 create a free being and then at the same time withhold 17:10 freedom from them to do what he might not want them to do. 17:14 And so this is known as the free will defense. 17:17 And it's actually, I think, the second part 17:19 after understanding there are many things we don't know, 17:22 we should also recognize 17:24 that God doesn't always get what he wants and this is because God 17:27 grants freedom and that's why there is evil in the world. 17:30 >>Eric: So that helps us understand from one perspective 17:34 the existence of evil. 17:36 It has to do with free will. 17:38 There's another angle that I wanna kind of take this 17:42 from and that's the sanctuary and judgment. 17:44 This theme in the Bible that, of course, we have a better 17:48 understanding than perhaps some others. 17:51 How does this concept of the sanctuary 17:53 and the judgment theme offer a response 17:56 to the problem of evil? 17:58 And how might this perspective influence a believer's trust 18:04 in God? 18:05 >>John: Yeah, so if you look at the history of the Bible, 18:07 you find actually that according to the Bible, the problem 18:10 of evil begins in the sanctuary and is dealt 18:12 with through the sanctuary. 18:14 When I say it begins in the sanctuary, actually the fall 18:18 of the being we know now as Satan who was a perfect angel 18:21 who fell from heaven. 18:22 This is just described as a covering cherub 18:24 in the most holy place in the book of Ezekiel and he falls 18:28 from that height and introduces evil into the universe and God 18:31 is dealing with this problem through the sanctuary system all 18:34 throughout the entire story in a way that upholds love 18:38 without compromising justice. 18:40 God will not do anything that undermines love, which is 18:42 why he grants freedom, but he also cannot 18:44 compromise his justice. 18:46 And this is what is taking place in the sanctuary system. 18:48 And to see this, I want us to see what is said in Psalm 73. 18:53 In Psalm 73, I mentioned this, I kind of summarized before how 18:56 you have the psalmist who's really troubled by the evil he 18:59 sees in the world, the injustice, 19:02 the seeming unfairness. 19:03 In fact, just at the beginning of Psalm 73, he says, first 19:06 of all, he says, "Truly God is good to Israel, 19:08 "to such as our pure in heart. 19:10 "But as for me, my feet had almost stumbled; 19:14 "my steps had nearly slipped. 19:16 "For I was envious of the boastful, 19:18 when I saw the prosperity of the wicked." 19:21 And he goes on throughout this to say, "Where is the justice?" 19:24 And this troubles him, right? 19:26 He almost slips, he says, "Because of his envy." 19:28 Why are the wicked prospering? 19:31 Where is justice? 19:32 And in fact, we see that sometimes justice is delayed, 19:35 but justice will not ultimately be denied. 19:38 In the sanctuary system, God makes a way to atone 19:42 for all sins for those who are actually in Christ, but those 19:46 who reject that, justice will also come on them as well. 19:51 And so justice will come in the end. 19:54 All wrongs will be righted. 19:56 And the psalmist himself actually sees this in Psalm 73. 20:01 He talks about how he was troubled by the prosperity 20:05 of the wicked. 20:06 He says many other things. 20:09 But then he drops, if you drop down to verse 16, verse 16 20:12 of Psalm 73, he says, 20:14 "When I thought how to understand this, 20:16 "it was too painful for me--until I went 20:20 into the sanctuary of God; then I understood their end." 20:25 So he finds a solution in the sanctuary. 20:29 And I would suggest also that we also find the solution 20:33 in the sanctuary. 20:35 We find in the sanctuary system the God who, among other things, 20:39 the God who Himself becomes human in Christ, lowers himself 20:44 to suffer and even die for the sins of others 20:47 even though he is completely innocent. 20:49 He takes on his shoulders responsibility, not culpability, 20:53 because He's not culpable, but He takes responsibility 20:55 for all sin and evil. 20:57 And He doesn't just sweep it under the rug. 20:59 No, He deals with it through the sanctuary system in a way 21:03 that will not only be just, not only resolve all 21:07 of the real problem of evil, not just the theoretical 21:09 problem, but the actual evil and suffering in the world, 21:12 but will do so in a way that will inoculate the universe 21:15 from evil ever arising again. 21:19 And of course, we don't have time here to unpack 21:21 these elements of the sanctuary system. 21:24 But in that, we see the character of God and what He 21:28 does to deal with all of the evil in the world, 21:33 yet in a way that He doesn't have to destroy the world, 21:36 but He can save everyone who is willing to be saved. 21:39 >>Eric: So, understanding evil in the context of the sanctuary 21:42 helps us or at least trying to understand it in the context 21:46 of the sanctuary helps us to get a little better grasp of it. 21:49 I wanna touch on one other thing before we kind of close today, 21:52 and that's the subject of humility. 21:55 Here we are trying to understand this vast, deep, theological, 22:02 experiential concept. 22:06 And I say here, we are trying to figure this out. 22:09 Sometimes we have a slightly elevated view of ourselves 22:13 and our ability to grasp things. 22:15 How important is it for us to be, to exercise a little bit 22:18 of humility when we approach this? 22:21 >>John: Yeah, I would say a lot of humility. 22:23 This is why the first point, and for some, if no other 22:28 response to the problem of evil is satisfying, it could even be 22:30 the last point is that there are many things that we do not know. 22:36 And on some things we should recognize we're not 22:38 in a position to know. 22:40 And therefore our answer should be the same as the answer 22:43 that Job finally arrived at when God says, 22:45 "Why do you talk so much when you know so little?" 22:47 We should be humble and recognize we don't know 22:50 what we don't know. 22:51 There are many factors that we do not see. 22:54 And I think we can learn a lesson from Job's friends. 22:58 And in fact, a couple of lessons that I would want to emphasize 23:01 here for us today. 23:02 First of all, we've talked a lot about maybe helping other people 23:05 wrestle with these things, helping people see a framework. 23:07 One thing we should be careful of is that when somebody is 23:10 going through very acute suffering, often that's the last 23:13 time that it would be helpful to give them kind of 23:15 a theoretical framework to think about suffering. 23:17 At that time, they really need somebody to draw near to them 23:20 and give them tangible care. 23:22 And there may be another time where they're ready to wrestle 23:24 with the cognitive dissonance and they're trying to ask 23:26 questions and that's when this kind of 23:28 discussion can be helpful. 23:29 But usually in the time of acute suffering, 23:31 it's not helpful at all. 23:32 And we actually see that in the book of Job, 23:34 even though Job's friends end up in the wrong place, 23:37 they start off really well. 23:39 Most people don't realize that for the text says, "For a week, 23:43 they sat with Job in silence and they comforted him." 23:46 And they were doing really well until they opened their mouth 23:50 to try to explain what was happening. 23:52 And when they did and they said, "You must deserve this," 23:55 they actually caused more harm because they spoke about things 23:58 that they really didn't know what they were talking about. 24:01 And if we're being honest with ourselves, we can help see 24:03 a framework of God's goodness and justice in spite of evil. 24:06 But when it comes to why something is happening 24:08 to somebody who's suffering, unless we're a prophet, 24:10 we don't really know. 24:12 And we shouldn't speculate and say, "Oh, this happened 24:13 because of this, this happened because of that." 24:14 Often we're just heaping suffering on people 24:16 when we do that. 24:18 So we should refrain from doing that. 24:19 And in all of this, we should remember the humility 24:22 that the Bible teaches. 24:24 I wanna tell just a brief story before I mention 24:29 the biblical teaching. 24:31 I remember very distinctly a number of years ago, 24:33 my son wasn't even two years old yet. 24:35 And my wife and I discovered that he might have 24:38 a life-threatening condition. 24:40 So we rushed him to the emergency room and he needed 24:44 to have a blood draw so that they could see whether there 24:48 needs to be life-saving intervention right away. 24:51 And he was frantic, you know. 24:52 He couldn't speak. 24:55 He probably couldn't understand much of what we were saying. 24:57 And I remember the nurse saying to my wife and I, you know, 25:00 hold down his arms and his legs so that I can actually stick him 25:04 with a needle to do the blood draw. 25:05 And I will never forget the look in his eyes. 25:13 "Daddy, why are you doing this to me? 25:17 "Daddy this hurts. 25:19 "Why are you hurting me? 25:20 Why are you letting me be hurt?" 25:22 And there was nothing that I could have said to my son Joel 25:25 in that moment that would have explained to him why I was doing 25:28 what I was doing. 25:30 But what I was doing was for his best good. 25:32 It was the only avenue available to me. 25:35 But there was no explanation that would suffice, 25:38 but I did have a good reason for doing what I was doing. 25:40 And if there's that much distance between myself 25:43 and my good intentions and my two-year-old son who couldn't 25:45 understand them, there's even greater distance between us 25:48 and the all-knowing, perfectly wise, 25:50 perfectly good God of the universe. 25:52 And this is just what the prophet Isaiah says 25:54 when he says, when God himself says in Isaiah, "For My thoughts 25:57 are not your thoughts and My ways are not your ways." 26:00 His ways are much higher than ours. 26:03 And we should always remember this, that there are many things 26:05 we do not know and we shouldn't expect to be 26:08 in a position to know. 26:09 >>Eric: So, a healthy dose of humility would serve us 26:12 well when we come up against things like this. 26:15 And there's probably a few other areas of the Bible where 26:17 that humility would come in handy as well. 26:18 >>John: That's right. There's a lot. 26:20 >>Eric: And so, we hope and trust that this has been 26:24 a blessing to you. 26:25 It may have generated some more questions. 26:26 That's okay. 26:28 Bible study frequently does that. 26:30 But in the midst of those questions that are being 26:32 generated, there are also going to be a lot of answers 26:34 that we're going to be finding. 26:36 John, give us a little perspective. 26:39 Where are we going? 26:40 Broad strokes, umbrella perspective, 26:43 where are we going with the rest of our 26:45 studies together? 26:46 >>John: Yeah, yeah, in the coming weeks, we're gonna talk 26:47 more about this idea of free will, 26:49 the fact that if God's all-powerful, does he make 26:52 everything happen the way he wants? 26:53 Does everything happen according to his will 26:55 or is there something else going on, right? 26:56 This idea of free will and how it plays in the problem of evil. 26:59 And that will answer some of our questions, but it will also 27:02 raise more questions like you said, 'cause we'll realize 27:04 that just free will doesn't seem to be enough to answer 27:07 all of our questions. 27:08 And for that, there's much more to the story. 27:10 And we're gonna delve into what we often refer 27:11 to as the great controversy 27:13 or the cosmic conflict motif of scripture. 27:16 And there's many parts of scripture that peels back 27:19 the curtain on what's going on behind the scenes. 27:21 So we can see a much larger framework 27:23 for this cosmic battle. 27:25 And that's one of the reasons why our world looks 27:27 like a war zone is because it is one. 27:29 And we're going to see some of these pieces 27:31 together in the coming weeks. 27:32 And we're looking forward to having you join us 27:35 on that journey. 27:36 We're going to be back again next week with lesson number 8 27:39 here on "Sabbath School", brought to you by 27:41 It Is Written. 27:42 ♪♪♪ 28:02 ♪♪♪ 28:13 ♪♪♪ 28:28 ... |
Revised 2025-02-06