Why Does God Allow Evil | What We Know

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Sign up at harvest.org. If God is so good and loving as it's often framed, why is there pain and suffering in the world? I'm really saying in so many words he's clearly not good and loving. I think the immediate response is, when did you become the moral center of the universe? That's a question that's often asked. Pastor Greg Laurie says we should focus less on what we don't know about God and more on what we do know. We don't always know the answers.

Why did God allow this to happen? We don't know, but here's what I do know. I know God is good. There's a lot we don't know about gravity.

It's a bit mysterious, but we know better than to fight against it or jump off a building claiming it doesn't exist. Some people find something mysterious about God and suddenly want to question his motives or even his existence. Our finite mind won't always understand the infinite mind of God. Today on A New Beginning, Pastor Greg Laurie tackles one of the questions people ask most often.

It's part of the series Life from the Gospel of John. You know, a Barna poll was conducted and the question was asked, if you could ask God one question and knew he would give you an answer, what would you ask? People said we would want to know why is there pain and suffering in the world. In fact, often people will point to the problem of evil and suffering as a reason for not believing in God than any other. Listen, it's not merely a problem.

It is the problem. Why does God allow tragedy? And if God can prevent such tragedies, why does he allow them to take place?

And in the classic statement of the problem, it usually goes along these lines. Either God is all powerful, but he's not all good, therefore he doesn't stop evil, or he's all good, but he's not all powerful, therefore he can't stop evil. And the general tendency is to blame God for evil.

We effectively transfer responsibility over to him. But let's kind of back up a little bit and come back to that core question. If God is so good and loving as it is often framed, why does he allow evil? Well the first part of that question is based on a false premise. Because basically I am the one now who will determine what goodness is. In fact, the very way I frame the question I am already sort of saying what I think.

Right? If God is so good and loving, why? I am really saying in so many words he is clearly not good and loving because if he was he wouldn't allow this. So I am already making a judgment of God. I think the immediate response is when did you become the moral center of the universe? You know who are you or who am I to say what is good or what isn't good? And we have to go back to what we do know.

Listen, when you don't know what is happening, go back to what you do know. When our son died on a Thursday I was in church the following Sunday. And I wasn't preaching, but I was attending. And so I sat there and people saw me in church and they saw my wife with me and they saw our son Jonathan. And they thought, they said you are so courageous to be in church. You are such a model of faith.

You kidding me? I needed to be in church. I wasn't there because I was strong. I was there because I was weak. And I needed God. And I needed help. And I needed the Bible. And I needed worship. And I needed perspective. Because when you go through something like that you know you have so many questions swimming around in your head. And so we look to the Lord.

So here is the bottom line. We don't always know the answers. Why did God allow this to happen? We don't know.

But here is what I do know. I know God is good. I know God is good. And I know God is loving. And I know God loves me.

Well coming back to the question again. Well if God is good and loving why did He allow that? Well okay first of all let's stop and think about this for a moment. And understand God did not create evil. You know God gave us a free will. And in the Garden of Eden He allowed our first parents Adam and Eve to make a choice. He could have made them robots.

He could have made them wind up dolls. He could have made them to do whatever He wanted them to do. But He wanted us to follow Him out of choice. But Adam and Eve sinned and sin entered the world. And now we have the choice to do the right thing or the wrong thing. And so evil people do evil things because they allow the devil to influence them. And I wish that wasn't the case. And I wish we lived in a pain-free world and a crime-free world and a sin-free world.

But we don't. So remember it is humanity not God that is responsible for sin. But here is the thing that we know as Christians. God can bring good despite the bad. Now sometimes Christians can be a little fast on the draw with Romans 8 28. And that is a great verse. For we know that all things work together for good to those that love God another called according to His purpose. But let's not misunderstand Romans 8 28. It doesn't say we know that all things become good. It says all things work together for good because sometimes there are things that happen in life that are bad.

They will always be bad and they will never stop being bad. So we don't have to say well God will make it a good thing. He never promised that. But He promised good can come despite the bad. And I think that is a very important distinction. But another thing that happens at a time like this is well people reevaluate their lives. You start thinking of eternity.

And you start thinking of things that really matter. And that is a good thing. Ok so this man that we are going to look at committed the worst crime imaginable. He betrayed and sold out Jesus. And he had a hand in the cold-blooded murder of the very Son of God. I am talking about Judas Iscariot.

And it is hard to believe that a man could do such a horrible thing. Yet as we will discover out of this act of pure evil the greatest good came for all of humanity. Because though Judas betrayed Christ.

We will tell you why in a few moments. But his heart was evil and Satan entered his heart and there was greed involved. But though he betrayed Christ and it was his desire to stop the ministry of Jesus in fact he helped to fulfill the ministry of Jesus because Jesus had come expressly to this earth to voluntarily die on the cross for the sin of the world. So Judas didn't realize he was helping to fulfill God's plan.

But indeed he was. But his very name is synonymous with evil and treachery. Judas is the traitor's traitor. And his life ended miserably in suicide because he sold out Jesus for 30 pieces of silver.

But you might be surprised to know there is more to Judas than you may realize. I think if we could go back in a sort of a time machine to the biblical days. Imagine how cool that would be. Because you know sometimes the question is asked if you could live in any other time in history. When would you live? Well you know the most popular answer by the way is the 50s.

Did you know that? And I kind of get that because things were kind of cool in the 50s. But I would probably want to go about 2,000 years back. And I would like to be able to see Jesus Christ personally. And I would like to just kind of hang out there and watch those stories unfold. But it would be nice if I could bring some modern conveniences with me.

You know like In-N-Out Burger. An iPhone. No I don't know what I would. I think it would be great if there were no iPhones honestly.

Or any phones of any kind. But anyway imagine what that would be like. And imagine if you actually approached Jesus and his disciples.

There they are. There is the Lord. And you would be thinking I wonder which one is Judas. And you would probably be thinking I bet he is wearing a black robe.

You know. Everybody else has a white robe. He has a black robe. In fact it is not a black robe. It is a black leather robe. And he has the collar turned up.

Motorcycle style. And he probably is wearing sunglasses before anyone even adds sunglasses. And you know he is all tatted up. Standing in the shadows.

Looking tough. That is Judas. And we sort of envision him as the bad guy. He was a bad guy. But actually he was the opposite of what I just described. You would not pick him out immediately as the evil one. In fact you might even think he was the most virtuous of all the disciples.

Say why? Because Judas was an amazing actor. He was really convincing. In fact the only person he didn't convince was Christ himself. But Judas was putting on an amazing performance as a follower of Jesus Christ. And to the point he was sort of religious outwardly. Don't forget as we learned earlier remember when Mary came and took that expensive perfume and poured it on the feet of Jesus and mopped his feet with her hair.

And who spoke up? Judas. Well this is wasteful.

Why would you do this? This is worth around 30 grand. Could not this have been sold? And the money given to the poor. And everyone was saying yeah that is true. Good point Judas.

What a good steward you are. But then John points out in his commentary and the gospel account of that story. This he said because he was greedy and was stealing the money himself. So things are not always as they appear. But at that moment Judas put on a pretty good show. And there are people like this today in the church. You know they talk the talk. They carry their Bibles.

They sing their songs. They look like one of us. We think they're one of us.

They might be sitting next to us. But that doesn't necessarily mean they're a believer. They may be what a hypocrite is. I don't think we understand what a hypocrite is.

Because we throw the word around. And boy people love to really call others hypocrites. You hypocrite. And what is a hypocrite? A hypocrite we think is someone who says they believe something and they do another. That's hypocrisy.

No it isn't. That's humanity. How many of you have ever believed one thing and contradicted it by the way that you live?

Raise your hand up. You hypocrites. You're just people.

You're messed up people like I messed up. And we all fall short of the glory of God. That's not hypocrisy. I'm not justifying contradicting what you say.

But I'm saying it happens to all of us in one way shape or form. But that's not the technical definition of a hypocrite. And when Jesus called out the religious leaders his hypocrites had a simple meaning. It meant an actor. That was the translation of the word actor. It came from the word hypocrite. It just means one who's putting on a performance.

And so that is the technical definition. A hypocrite and the way it's used by Christ is a person that pretends to be something they are not. Judas was a classic hypocrite.

He pretended to be a follower of Jesus but he really wasn't. Pastor Greg Laurie will have the second half of his message in just a moment. We send these daily studies out via radio satellite and our podcasts. And we don't always know how these messages are touching lives. But when we hear the stories of our listeners' heartaches and regrets, we're encouraged to know the impact on people's lives.

I have about a 45-minute commute to and from work. And I listened to Pastor Greg Laurie's podcast. I just finished listening to one of the sermons from the series, Let's Talk About Heaven.

And I had an abortion back in 2010. And it's been a long journey of healing. And when I finally came to the realization that the safest place is to be at the foot of the cross, I was able to fully experience mercy and grace and love that the Lord has for me. And I just wanted to say thank you, Pastor Greg, for this sermon series. And I'm getting a little emotional because what a day that will be to not only be reunited with my baby, but to be united with Jesus Christ.

I just want to say thank you. What a powerful story of God's forgiveness. Do you have a story to tell of how Pastor Greg's studies in God's Word have helped you? If so, why not call and share it with us? Just call 1-866-871-1144. Again, 866-871-1144. And now Pastor Greg resumes his message called, Why Does God Allow Evil?

Let's listen. Here in John 13, the Lord's hour has come. Often he would say, my hour has not yet come. My hour has not yet come.

Now his hour has come. The hour of his arrest, his suffering, his crucifixion, and his resurrection from the dead. We're about 15 to 18 hours away from the crucifixion of Christ here chronologically in John 13. And we're coming to the last minute and we're coming to the last Passover that Jesus would celebrate with his disciples. We get a closing glimpse of Judas as he slinks into the night with betrayal on his mind.

We also get a somewhat comical look at Simon Peter and we get a better look at ourselves as we see what Jesus really wants for us. So let's read from John 13. I'm reading verses 1 to 9.

And by the way I'm reading from the New Living Translation. Before the Passover celebration Jesus knew that his hour had come to leave this world and return to his father. He had loved his disciples during his ministry on earth and now he loved them to the very end.

It was time for supper and the devil had already prompted Judas son of Simon Iscariot to betray Jesus. Jesus knew that the father had given him authority over everything and that he had come from God and would return to God. He got up from the table took off his robe wrapped a towel around his waist and poured water into a basin. Then he began to wash the disciples feet drying them with the towel he had around him. And when Jesus came to Simon Peter he said to him Lord are you going to wash my feet. Jesus replied you don't understand what I'm doing but someday you will. No Peter protested you will never ever wash my feet. Jesus said unless I wash you you won't belong to me. Then Peter exclaimed then wash my hands and head as well not just my feet.

Okay we'll stop there. Verse one what a powerful opening verse. Before the Passover celebration Jesus knowing his hour had come to leave this world to return to his father. He loved his disciples during his ministry on earth and now he loves them to the very end. With Calvary closing in and all the pressure it brought this is such a touching picture of Christ.

He's down on his hands and knees washing their feet loving them to the end. The disciples were alone with Jesus this night. The crowds are not present and this is the last supper. Here's the problem when we think of the last supper we think of the painting by Leonardo da Vinci the great painter. And in da Vinci's painting of the last supper and he also painted Mona Lisa of course but in his painting of the last supper it's it's a long table right. And everybody's seated behind the table Jesus is in the middle and they're kind of facing forward kind of like they're posing for a selfie or something right. So that's how we envision the last supper.

Erase that idea from your mind that's not the way it looked. It would have been a low slung table. They would have been sitting on pillows probably reclining and maybe in sort of a semi-circular fashion. And they would have various bits of bread that they would dip in various kinds of sauces sort of like chips and salsa if you will. That's actually what it was like.

And so it's a very casual thing. They would eat olives. They would eat dates.

They would eat bits of fish and so forth. And that's what a meal would look like. And a meal was long. It was leisurely. It wasn't formal with cutlery in front of you. You know that's what you call it if you're from England cutlery.

And no it was very casual and relaxed. And you would eat with your hands. You would share the food. So this is what a meal looked like. And this is what the last supper actually looked like. And Jesus now does something that shocks everyone. He gets out of base in the water and starts to wash their feet. Now this by the way was done customarily by the servant of the house. So when you would walk in wearing your sandals or whatever and you had all the dirt and dust all over your feet the servant would come and wash your feet before you came into the house.

But who is doing this? Not a servant but Jesus Himself washing their feet. You know you wonder if as He was washing and drying them if He was thinking of each one as He came to Andrew and Mark and He's washing and drying their feet and He's thinking these precious feet will spread the gospel to the whole world. Because the Bible says how beautiful are the feet of those that bring good news. Then He came to the feet of Judas Iscariot and He thought these feet will soon steal away in the dark. And by the way if I was Jesus I would not have watched the feet of Judas Iscariot. I would have broken the feet of Judas Iscariot. Oh yeah you're gonna do this?

Try it now. Like that yeah. See how well you walk now Mr. Betrayer. But our Lord knew exactly what Judas was about to do. And then Peter. He's washing Peter's feet. I don't know why but I think Peter's like you know size 13 or something. And Peter was so outspoken. That's why I like him so much. Because you always knew where you stood with the big fisherman.

There was no mystery to Peter. He was not a complex kind of a guy. He would just say what he was thinking in the moment.

Some might even say he lacked a filter. Because he would just blurt things out and so the Lord comes to his feet and Peter says you can't wash my feet. Jesus says buddy if I don't wash your feet you have no part of me. Well then give me a bath right now. Hey Peter really.

That's why I said it was pretty much a comical moment. But why would Jesus even do this to start with? Well he was demonstrating what he taught. He said if you want to be greatest in the kingdom of God learn to be the servant of all. Important insights today from Pastor Greg Laurie and his message called Why Does God Allow Evil? And there's more to come as this study continues here on A New Beginning.

And then we want to share a listener comment we received. It says Pastor Greg I wanted to thank you for today's sermon. It really spoke to me. I read a comment by a person I consider a friend mocking the faith in those who follow Jesus. I was hurt and wanted to reply but instead prayed for them and gave it to God. Then I heard your message and you said all that live a godly life will be harassed and persecuted for the faith.

That means you were on the right track with God. I wept listening to your words because it was the reassurance I needed to stay strong in my faith. Thank you for continuing to preach the word.

Well we're so blessed that God is using these daily studies to impact people's lives to give them encouragement and an anchor. And if you've partnered with us to help make these programs possible thank you for being used by God. And Pastor Greg we appreciate that listener partnership.

Yes. And we have some unique ways to say thank you don't we? That's right and you know who you are out there that support us and thank you so much and God bless you. I wish I could walk up to you and shake your hand and have a few moments with you and I do run into people all the time Dave wherever I go that listen to our radio broadcasts.

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Again that's 1-800-821-3300. And then we want to let you know about something exciting. Pastor Greg and the Crusade team are headed to Idaho soon for an important evangelistic event. It's called the Boise Harvest. It's at Extra Mile Arena April 23rd and 24th. Pastor Greg's music guests are Jeremy Camp, Chris Tomlin, Andy Mineo, and Jordan Felice. Please keep this event in prayer would you? Ask the Lord to prepare the hearts of those who will attend. And you can help us spread the word about this event. Tell your friends in Idaho about the Boise Harvest by sending them to boise.harvest.org. Hey I don't know if you know about this but we have a weekend service called Harvest at Home exclusively for people that are tuning in literally from around the world.

Listen to this. We even have harvest groups where you can get into a small group with folks from all around this planet of ours and study the word of God. So join us this weekend Saturday and Sunday for Harvest at Home at harvest.org. Well next time more from our look at the life and sad example set by Judas Iscariot. More from Pastor Greg's message called Why Does God Allow Evil? Join us here on A New Beginning with pastor and Bible teacher Greg Lord. Hey everybody thanks for listening to this podcast. To learn more about Harvest Ministries follow this show and consider supporting it. Just go to harvest.org and to find out how to know God personally go to harvest.org and click on know God.