SL Podcast - Ep. 002 | Why does God let bad things happen?

Joe Farage

Tough Questions • Sermon • Submitted a year ago • Presented a year ago

Origin of sin and evil

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Transcript

Intro

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Hello, hello! You’re listening to the studentlife podcast, where our goal is to help you know and follow Jesus, step by step. On this podcast, we take a dive into a recent topic from StudentLife Youth Ministry and look at how we can live it out. Studying what the Bible says helps us know Jesus, and finding ways to live it out helps us follow Him.

My name is Joe Farage and I’m one of the youth leaders at StudentLife. Let’s dig in!

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Recap

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I’m going to be mentioning a lot of verses in the recap and deep dives, all the references will be in the Show Notes if you want to refer back to them.

So last week was the start of a new series on Tough Questions. We’ll be taking a look at the hard questions that most people, if not all of us, have asked multiple times in their life. Pastor Jordan started us off by tackling the ever-present question, “Why does God let bad things happen?”

To lay a foundation for this, he outlined 3 “causes” of bad things happening.

Bad things happen because of sin and sinful choices

Bad things happen because God is correcting us

Bad things happen because of the sin curse (caused by our sinful choices from the first cause)

To give a quick recap about each cause

The first was “Bad things happen because of sin and sinful choices”

He looked at Gen 3:12-19 which shows the consequences Adam and Eve (and ultimately all of us) received for their sinful choice. Adam blames Eve, Eve blames the serpent, and all 3 receive a consequence for their part in the sin choice.

This account in Genesis is the first sign that we, humans, have a choice to follow God or not, and God wants us to choose Him. Adam and Eve had a choice to make, and they chose sin over God, which led to sin curse on the world.

The second cause was “Bad things happen because God is correcting us”

The parable of the prodigal son is a great illustration of this. This story is found in Luke 15, and talks about a son who asks for his inheritance from his father early, then goes and wastes it all on partying and anything else he could find. He wastes so much that he find himself feeding pigs for a job, and he was so hungry he wanted to eat the slop the pigs were eating.

Right near start of recording

Pastor Jordan explained that “Sometimes God is going to let you go to rock bottom so that you realize you need him”

He gave an illustration that it’s like we’re standing with God on one side of the room, then we start walking away, across the room, and we’re asking God why He’s leaving us, but in reality, God never moved and we did.

Hebrews 12:11 says that “No discipline seems enjoyable at the time, but later, it brings about righteousness”

The reason for this correction is God wants our faith and our relationship with Him to grow.

The third cause was “Bad things happen because of the sin curse and our choices (history)”

This ties in with the first cause. Bad stuff happens because of choices we make, but also because we’re living in a world suffering the consequences of sin. Adam and Eve were living in a literal paradise, and still chose to go against the Creator of that paradise. By doing that, it led to paradise being broken and the perfect status of the world was gone. So now, many many years later, humans still make choices that go against our Creator, God, and the earth still suffers the consequences of sin. The sin curse and humanity’s choices have led to some terrible atrocities through history.

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TRANSITION

Before we get too far, I want to introduce a new segment. Over the next couple of months, I’m going to do mini-interviews with the StudentLife leaders so you get to know them a bit more.

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interview with ashlee

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Deep Dive

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While you could argue that God “allows” bad things to happen, I want to re-frame that statement to look at how God gives us free will, and allows us to experience both the positive AND negative effects of that free will. All three of the “causes” that Pastor Jordan tie in to “free will”.

So a quick foundation on what “free will” means. Basically it means that you and I have the ability to make choices, and by extension, those choices have consequences. Every time you’re faced with a choice, no matter how big or small it is, there’s consequences. Sometimes they can be positive and sometimes, maybe not. Sometimes the consequences can have a huge impact on your life and the lives of those around you, and sometimes not. But when it comes down to it, we’re all able to make choices throughout our lives. This means that God’s not in heaven treating each of us like puppets, forcing us to go down a certain path in our lives.

When you draw this out and start to look at the effects of free will, both in the Bible, and throughout history, patterns start to emerge

One of the first places we see this is in Genesis. In Genesis 1:6-8 it says, “Then God said, “Let there be an expanse between the waters, separating water from water.” So God made the expanse and separated the water under the expanse from the water above the expanse. And it was so. God called the expanse “sky.” Evening came and then morning: the second day.”

A couple chapters later in Genesis 6 and 7 we see the account of the flood. Humans were starting to spread out on the earth and desired to do evil things. Everything on their mind was against the good that God wanted for them. So God removed his ordering from the earth. In other accounts we’ll look at, when humans do evil and stop representing God, He “hands us over” to the consequences of our actions.

Genesis 7:11 tells us that “all the sources of the vast watery depths burst open, the floodgates of the sky were opened,”

So we see the waters, that were separated during creation and that God held in order are recombined during the flood. The people wanted evil, which leads to death, so they suffered the consequences of their actions.

Now, that’s obviously a global consequence for a recurring global choice, but we also see this happen on a smaller scale.

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In Deuteronomy 31:16-22 we see a sad foreshadowing. Moses is about to die, and God’s giving him some final instructions. God tells Moses that the Israelites are going to forget what Moses taught them, and are going to turn their back on God. God has Moses write a song to give them to remind them to stay focused on God, in an attempt to help them choose wisely. God says that if they do still turn their back and walk away from God, He’s going to “hide his face” from them.

2 books later, in Judges, we see Israel fall into the same cycle over and over again. It’s summed up in Judges 2:11-19. The Israelites do evil and abandon God, so God “gave them over” to be plundered and sold into slavery and overwhelmed by their enemies. Then they would cry out because they were so oppressed, and God would have mercy on them and provide someone to defend them and free them from their oppression. Then once they were freed, the Israelites would again do evil and abandon the Lord and it would start all over again.

It’s important to pay attention to how we read the Bible. In Judges 2:14 it says “The Lord handed them over to marauders […and that…] He sold them to the enemies around them”

Since Judges takes place before Jesus, we know that God didn’t literally show up and physically sell the Israelites, so what does that phrase mean? Judges was likely completed in the 6th or 7th century BC, so the terminology used by the author is from that time period as well. To paraphrase these verses, perhaps a more modern way of reading that verse would be “The Lord removed His protection from the Israelites, which allowed marauders to plunder them and take them into captivity, where they were sold as slaves to other countries”

You can see this phrasing again in Judges 3:8, 10:7, 2 Kings 13:3 and several other spots throughout the Old Testament.

God “hiding his face” or “handing them over” means that the people made a choice and showed that they desired things other than Yahweh God, and because of those choices, they suffer consequences.

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So how does this all tie into bad stuff happening to us?

Pastor Jordan gave three causes of bad stuff happening:

Bad things happen because of sin

Bad things happen because God is correcting us

Bad things happen because of the sin curse

Sin is caused by choices. Sometimes bad stuff happens to us because of choices that are made. What’s crazy about this is that it might not even be a choice that YOU make. If someone is driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol and crashes into my car, I didn’t make any bad choices, but I still suffer the consequences for their choices.

God correcting us, that one is definitely our choices. Like we looked at with the Israelites, when bad stuff happens it doesn’t mean that God is sending evil things into my life, but He’s “hiding his face” because I chose to participate in sin, and God and sin can’t co-exist.

Lastly, the Sin curse. This one is a tough one, and I still wrestle with this too, but because paradise was left in the Garden in Eden, we’re not living in paradise now. This is where any “bad” stuff would fall, if it’s not directly tied to someone’s choices, such as natural disasters. The argument could be made that mistreatment of earth and it's resources has led to increase in natural disasters, but even if we disregard that argument, entropy still exists. Any system that is not maintained and sustained, suffers from entropy, even to as grand a scale as the earth and universe. From formed to free, from ordered to disordered.

All this discovery leads to this last question. Why doesn’t God stop the bad things we go through?

This is a great question. One I’ve asked many times over many different problems in my life.

But if we want God to stop the bad things, who decides what bad is? Does everyone define it the same way?

If we’re asking God to stop the bad things, it would have to be using His definition, which would mean that zero sin could exist, which would mean there’s no room for grace and correction. God’s mercy and God’s justice go hand in hand. If He was just all mercy, I could do whatever I wanted because I can abuse His mercy. But if He’s all justice, then the moment I break my relationship with Him, it’s over, there’s no opportunity to apologize and learn and grow.

Takeaway

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This question is massive question. It’s a very tough question to process because no one WANTS bad things to happen. But, it’s a very important question to wrestle with so when bad stuff happens to you, you can always go back to your foundation about who Jesus is, regardless of the bad happening.

My wife and I have 3 wonderful kids, but we’ve also gone through 3 miscarriages in the last 5 years or so, and the last one almost caused by wife to bleed out in the ambulance. There were no bad choices on anyone’s part that led to that loss, but it still happened. I don’t have an answer for why we lost those babies, but I know from decades of experience, that Jesus is faithful and good. I know that even though we suffer in an imperfect world, He still works to turn mourning into joy. My wife and I have already seen ways that God has used those horrible, terrible experiences to allow us to bring comfort to others who are walking through similar situations. It doesn’t make the loss any easier, but it does show me that even when bad stuff happens for no reason, God isn’t abandoning me.

As I wrap up, I encourage you to wrestle with this question. Wrestle with the bad stuff you’re going through or have gone through, and see what category it falls into.

If it’s from a choice you made, own up to it and grow through it.

If it’s from a choice someone else made, get help. Talk to someone you trust to get help navigating how to move forward.

and if it’s just bad stuff that happens because we’re living in an imperfect world, talk to Jesus. Ask what you can learn through it, ask how to grow through it, and listen for His response.

Jesus loves you. Jesus wants to comfort you and help you get through the bad stuff that inevitable happens in this fallen world.

Announcements/News

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As you heard, we just finished week 1 of our Tough Questions series, and week 2 continues this Wednesday night when Pastor Jordan is going to look at “Why is there Hell?”

We’re doing 2 Q and A nights as a part of this series, so if you have questions about one of the messages, or a tough question in general, you can text it to 716-464-2276. We’d love to get your thoughts so we can answer the questions YOU have!

The theme this Wednesday is Music night! So come dressed up as your favorite musician, obviously keep it appropriate.

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Outro and Acknowledgements

Alright, that’s a wrap for this episode, big shout out to Ashlee for the mini-interview.

I hope this helps you wrestle this question through a bit more, but know you don’t need to wrestle alone. We’d love to help you process this question and whatever else you’re going through at StudentLife.

Remember Jesus loves you and we do to!

On behalf of Pastor Jordan and all the StudentLife Youth Leaders, thanks for listening and we hope to see you at a StudentLife event!

StudentLife is a ministry of Life Church Buffalo. The High School group meets Wednesday nights at 7pm, and the Middle School group meets Sunday mornings at 11:15am. You can find StudentLife on Instagram and TikTok.

The original music for this episode was by Blakeis, you can find him on Spotify.

All those links and more are in the show notes.

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Post-Show Bonus

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Hope reading

Hebrews 12:11 “No discipline seems enjoyable at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.”

Show Notes

This is the first week of our Tough Questions series. We wrestle with the question, “Why does God let bad things happen?” It’s a great question, and one that all of us have likely asked before.

Bible References:

Genesis 1:6-8, 3:12-19, chapters 6 and 7

Deuteronomy 31:16-22

Judges 2:11-19, 3:8, 10:7

2 Kings 13:3

Luke 15

Hebrews 12:11