Michigan Camp Meeting 2023: The Boldness of the Cross

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Michigan Conference of Seventh-day Adventists

Theodicy

Travis Smith

Melanie’s Problem

You are about to enjoy a presentation recorded at the 2023 Michigan Conference Camp Meeting held at Cedar Lake, Michigan.

We pray that the Lord will bless you as you listen.

Father in heaven, we thank you for this time that we have to spend time in your word.

As we journey through this series, Lord, we just pray that we would all grow together as a little family here in the Boys Dorm Chapel.

Lord, we ask that you would help us to understand and make truth plain.

Okay, so people always wonder, where can I read about this topic of theodicy?

And theodicy is just a big word for the problem of human suffering.

If you want to impress your friends with theological knowledge, call it theodicy.

The first topic is called Melanie's Problem and the Problem of Human Suffering.

Here are the books that I have read on this topic, and if you really want to really understand this topic well, I mean deeply, so that you can really talk about it and help people who go through loss and tragedy, The first book is Philip Yancey, Where is God When It Hurts.

And this is my favorite because it was the first book that I read.

And of course, there's only 2 of these books on the book list that is Adventist, so of course you have to be a good horse and spit out the mud and eat the grass.

So I developed this book into 17 or 18 sermons and I had to make it Adventist, so you understand what I'm saying.

And then Theodicy of Love by John Peckham.

This is a Seventh-day Adventist author and to my knowledge, this is the first scholarly book that is written on the topic of of theodicy.

I think he's working with the Adventist Review now.

This book is part 2 to this 1, Satan and the Problem of Evil.

This is letters that he wrote his dad on the question of human suffering.

And then this book is by your friend David Asherick and Nathan Renner.

And then this book, The Problem of Pain by C.S.

And then these last 2, did God really command genocide by Paul Copin and Matthew Flanagan?

This 1 is making sense of the Old Testament God, and this 1 is specifically on the genocide or destruction of the Canaanites.

And we have those questions about the Canaanites.

We don't have time to get into every little thing that there has to do with this topic and 5 sermons.

So we're going to try to hit the big big topics.

You are going to have about 6, 7 years of reading if you buy all those books.

So the reason why I have developed this series of studies is because in 2012, I think it was September 12th, my mother died in a car accident and I grew up with her coming home from the hospital.

She basically kept the hospital in business by herself.

And I thought that she was going to come home from, Tom, there's a handout right by the chair.

If anybody doesn't have a handout, it's right on the chair.

So I grew up with my mom coming home from the hospital.

And she didn't come home from the hospital.

And I'm, you know the Bible says, if you have faith of a mustard seed, you can move mountains, right?

I asked God to resurrect my mother when she was there laying on the gurney in the hospital and the chaplain came in and he said we need to have another family move in, it is time for you to leave." And I was a little angered by that because this was the last time I would ever see my mom.

She's a Vax'ilot and Adventist, living with her boyfriend in Columbus.

And I was like trying to make deals with God.

If you resurrect mom, she'll have to believe and she'll come back to church.

And then the Lord later convicted me with the story of the rich man and Lazarus.

Even if 1 rises from the dead, they will not repent.

They have Moses and the prophets here them.

In other words, the Word of God should be good enough.

A miracle isn't good enough if the Word isn't good enough.

You got to stick with the Lord when you have questions.

You have to stick with God and give Him time to answer your questions.

So I put my hand in my mother's hand, and man, it was just, rigor mortis set in and it was stiff and her pinky was out like that just a little bit.

And I squeezed her hand and I expected her to squeeze my hand and just sit straight up.

And she just sat there and didn't resurrect.

And I kissed her forehead and it was like kissing a bag of frozen peas.

And from about 3 years forward after that, I was angry.

But they were like little one-sentence, drive-by-shooting prayers.

Lord, please bless my people as they hear this sermon." They were really short, really unfather-son like prayers.

It's bad when a pastor goes through a faith crisis.

And you need to pray for your pastors, because sometimes pastors make mistakes.

And this book right here was the first book that I read.

And I wrote an email to the pastor, he's a non-denominational pastor in Minnesota, and he never wrote me back, I wonder why.

And the concept that gave me my faith back, I'm going to share with you on Friday.

You've got to come back on Friday to hear the answer of the simple concept of what gave me my faith back.

But I think you're really going to enjoy this seminar as we go along.

So that is the reason why I have put these series together and done all of this reading.

Freedom and Risk & Does God Get Everything He Wants

Father in heaven, thank you that it's Tuesday.

Thank you that we're here at Camp Meeting and you are changing us from what we were to what we are going to be.

Some of us were much different 20 years ago.

Lord, we thank you that you change us and that you use the power of the gospel to take from what was to what will.

If God is entirely good, and the big word for that is omnibenevolent, and all-powerful, and the big word for that is omnipotent, Why is there evil in a world that God has created?

Because if God gets everything he wants, evil exists, then you must conclude that God wants evil.

Some thinkers resolve this perceived dilemma either by denying God's omnipotence or his omnibenevolence.

Many theologians who affirm both divine characteristics appeal to the free will defense.

This perspective claims that although God is entirely good and possesses the power to exclude evil altogether, God allows evil because to do otherwise would negate creaturely free will.

Some believe that since God knows the future perfectly, He knows everything that's going to happen, we cannot possess free will.

Today we're going to deal with the biblical concept of self-determination versus human free will.

Some time ago, there was a conference that 1 of our best Christian apologists, who is now sleeping in Jesus, Ravi Zacharias, spoke and someone posed the question, since we cannot surprise God with our actions, doesn't that mean that we do not have free will?

And furthermore, since we do not have free will, isn't God's judgment an act of immorality?

Because if God has a will that cannot be stopped, and that means that if we sinned, then it must mean that God willed us to sin, so therefore banishing us to hell would be therefore immoral because we were doing that which we were programmed to do.

My question is, since the Bible has been scientifically disproven as far as all the claims, you know, the revolution, the theory of evolution, the archeology, you know, Noah's Ark, Adam and Eve.

Since we know this didn't happen because of our science, science nowadays.

My question is, how do we have, according to the Bible, how do we have free will if God is this omniscient being that knows everything about us, everything we will do.

And he pretty much knows our outcome before we're even created.

So he creates us knowing everything we'll do.

Since we can't surprise him by our actions, we have no free will.

And that the act of judgment is completely immoral because he knows what we're gonna do.

And before you go into an auditorium, you can give a sheet of paper and ask us to write 20 possible questions that'll come.

We've never heard a new 1 in all of these years that go by.

It's interesting that you began by saying as an atheist all of this has been disproved and so you live with scientific materialism as your world view.

I studied under John Hockinghorn at Cambridge University, you probably know the name, 1 of the world's leading quantum physicists who came to exactly the opposite conclusion you did, while being the dean at Queen's College, Cambridge as a quantum physicist, taking the same data you did.

So obviously for a man of his intellectual ability to come to a different conclusion, 1 would either have to say he's totally stupid to come to that conclusion, or else his empirical basis, please don't keep shaking your head, let me finish, so that you can come and talk afterwards so you'll ask to concentrate what we're saying here.

I want to read for you what David Berlinski says about the scientific naturalistic world.

1 of the world's leading physicists, was an agnostic, was on atheism, but took issue with Richard Dawkins' book, The God Delusion, and wrote a book called The Devil's Delusion.

Has anyone ever provided proof of God's inexistence?

Has quantum cosmology explained the emergence of the universe or why it is here?

Have the sciences explained why our universe seems to be fine tuned to allow for the existence of life?

Are physicists and biologists willing to believe in anything as long as it is not religious thought?

Has rationalism and moral thought provided us with an understanding of what is good, what is right, and what is moral?

Has secularism in the terrible 20th century been a force for good?

Is there a narrow and oppressive orthodoxy of thought and opinion within the sciences?

Does anything in the sciences or in their philosophy justify the claim that religious belief is irrational, not even in the ballpark?

Is scientific atheism a frivolous exercise in intellectual contempt?

Ethan, Ethan, what you're wrestling with is not uncommon.

Many people from a scientific and materialistic world view will say what you've said and come to that conclusion.

The problem is what you mispositioned was your concern between determinism and free will.

I was, your application could have gone in many different directions, but you came to that 1 for some reason, which I was unfortunate, I think.

At Cambridge, I listened to a talk at the Lady Mitchell Hall in 1990 by Stephen Hawking.

As you know, he can't speak, He uses a speech synthesizer.

His whole talk was on determinism and freedom.

And he only concluded that the tragedy of its scientific materialism, if we take its assumptions, is that we are not free.

That was the world's leading physicist at that time saying the very thing you're asking of the Christian faith he pinned on your backs.

Lady Mitchell Hall, 1990, somewhere around March, April, May, that time.

And he said, the only escape I have is since I don't know what has been determined, I may as well not be.

The whole auditorium moaned and groaned with an escape hatch that he gave for himself after telling us that we were completely determined.

That is actually even what people like Dawkins will concede, or Pinker, you read Steven Pinker and the others.

So the question is, were you free to ask this question?

So you're actually, as a machine, automatron asking me this question?

I mean, what I'm saying is our memories and our states...

If you're totally determined, you're free-wired to think the way you do.

Job & His “Friends” Pt. 1

Heavenly Father, thank you for this time to open your word and talk about spiritual things.

Spiritual things are spiritually discerned according to your word.

We ask that you would bless us with your spirit so that we could understand and that he can apply and heal the hurt we pray in Jesus name Amen a fire raged over the parish of a German pastor laying in ruins his home and his church that he had worked at for so long, and even some of the homes of his church members.

The fire claimed the death of his wife and his children, and disease laid him prostrate, then blindness overtook him, and under this avalanche of trouble, he dictated these words, My Jesus, as thou wilt, O may thy will be mine.

In to thy hand of love, I will, I would all my resign." Now, that sounds pretty beautiful, doesn't it?

But in the light of the series of the things that you have learned so far, doesn't that sound a little bit like what we hear from Job?

The short poem that he wrote is really nice, but does it assume that what happened to his family and to this church with this fire was God's will?

My Jesus, as Thou wilt, O may Thy will be mine!

Into Thy hand of love I would all my resign.'" I kind of think that he subscribes to the idea that everything that happens is always God's will, and the fire and everything that it claimed was also God's will as well.

Today we're going to talk about Job and his friends, part 1, but before we do that, we are going to do a short recap.

First message can be reduced to 1 sentence.

We were taught to preach that you should be able to repeat your sermons with just 1 sentence, and the first sermon can be summarized in 1 sentence, God looks like Jesus.

And then we saw God is love, and then yesterday we saw that God is love.

Love is willing to risk war so freedom can actually be free.

We saw that when God gives free will, he does not take away the free will of those who choose to misuse their freedom so that you make your own choices.

I mean, have any of you ever unscrewed the head of your child and then put this love chip into them so that they say, I love you, Mama.

I mean, would you want something like that?

There's just something about, you know, when a boy comes in from playing, he's got grass stains, and then he puts his arms around you.

And they choose to love you instead of being forced to love you.

God does not want robots, He wants people that make choices.

Then we saw that God made evil possible, but God did not make evil actual.

The tree of knowledge was simply a voting booth.

You know what a political campaign is, right?

It's where I represent me and misrepresent you.

And so Satan was misrepresenting God's character and God said all these trees you could eat except for that 1.

Pretty easy to understand, not very restrictive.

I would think that would be pretty easy to understand.

But we saw that Adam made a wrong vote, and he made evil actual, but God made evil.

God is responsible for evil and suffering only in the sense that He gave choice, and that's it.

Then, we saw divinity does not always get its way.

We saw that God's will can be rejected, and we also saw that we need to make a difference between the promotion and permission of evil.

Jesus promoted the tree of life and all the other trees.

He permitted the tree of knowledge because of human freedom.

So, you need to make a difference between what God permits and what God promotes.

So we saw yesterday also that we should pray that God's will be done on earth because it is mostly not.

And the reason, you know, I find it really interesting.

I don't know if you've ever thought about these things, but God wants everyone to be saved, right?

How come God has limited the salvation of a lot of people?

If God wants everyone to be saved, then how come He has made it so in the rules of engagement in the Great Controversy that a lot of people's salvation is responsible specifically upon your intercessory prayer.

God has made it so that even safety and protection is largely responsible to those who pray.

If God loves us, doesn't He want to keep us safe whether we pray or not?

It is how God has set up the rules of engagement.

And if you remember when Peter and James were in prison, that James was beheaded and then Herod was getting ready to make a quick end of Peter.

But, it says that there was prayer constantly offered.

An angel showed up, slapped Peter on the side, his shackles fell off, the door opened, and then he knocked at the door and the woman, you know, she thought that she was seeing a spirit, right?

So the idea here is that if the church would have been constantly praying, James and Peter probably both would have been saved.

So when Satan, we had a conversation with a couple young people yesterday and I think I learned something in that conversation and I'll just go ahead and tell you what it was.

My question was, why has God limited Himself like that?

God is limited by the way that He has revealed Himself.

The Sabbath will always be from Friday night sunset to Saturday night sunset.

So God has limited Himself by the way that He has revealed Himself.

God is love, therefore He cannot be anything else other than loving.

So all these claims that Satan makes about God is unfair, he's unjust.

It cannot be because God has declared himself to be love.

Not like love, not have love, but to be the very essence of who love is.

So if you remember, God asked, well Jesus, same thing, Jesus asked Moses to strike the rock first time, water came out, he said to strike the rock again, and, sorry, speak to the rock, and then he struck it twice because he was mad at you rebels, that's what he called them, and then God told him that he would have to die and then we're told that he was taken up on Mount Pisgah and he was shown all the land of Canaan and even a vision of the second coming and the events leading up to the mark of the beast and all of this you'll find this in the writings of Ellen White and then God just hit power and he just he just he just died like that he hit pause.

And then he resurrected him, and Satan was there to say, you know, he's mine because he sinned, and you can't take him because if you take Him and He sinned, then you have to take me with my sin.

God needs you to be a part of the great controversy because you give him permission to act in certain situations where people's lives, they are bound by sin and they are being held captive by the devil and when you pray for people who are living in sin, you give Jesus opportunity to invade that territory, and the same argument can be had over the body of Moses, over, say, somebody who's living in sin.

That you have continually prayed for for 8, 9, 10 years, and you're thinking, why hasn't God answered my prayer?

Well, you need to remember, human freedom is involved.

There's a lot of aspects that go into whether or not a prayer can be answered.

I mean, there's the old story where the poor man cries out to God, and he says, why aren't you providing for me?

How come you're not giving me what I need?

The Bible says, my God will supply your needs to the riches in glory.

And then he moves on the heart of the rich man down the street to help provide for the poor man.

And God was trying to answer the prayer of the poor man through the rich man down the street, but the rich man says, I have worked for my money, I will will not give my money away because everybody needs to earn what they get.

And so the rich man rejected God's will, and the poor man, it was as if God didn't even answer his prayer.

And sometimes we box God in to a specific way that we want our prayers answered, Where the free will of the rich man was abused, and it seemed that the poor was not having their prayers answered.

God needs you to pray so that His will may be done on earth." And that's 1 of the big lessons that we learn, that the reason why God's will is not being done on earth is because God's people are not praying that His will be done on earth, because a lot of times we learn truth, it crosses us, we don't want to do it, and then we live 60-70% surrender to God.

Well, that big strong angel was there to prevent the way to the tree of life lest man put forth his hand.

Job & His “Friends” Pt. 2

Father in heaven, thank you for this time that we have to spend time in your Word.

Are you guys enjoying the seminar so far?

The fun thing about the learning process is it takes you out into places where you haven't been.

And what you're experiencing here is the pain of a learning process where you're going out into places where you don't have a clear Ellen White statement to back up everything that you have in the Bible.

And so what you're doing is you're learning that when you go out into new places, you have to trust the Word of God.

And so you have to develop this faith in the Word.

And the Holy Spirit has a way of telling you what's right and wrong, but you make sure that after the seminar's over, you go home and you check everything by the Bible.

Okay, The purpose of Job's prologue is to set up a specific episode that will vindicate God's wisdom and integrity.

It serves this function by allowing the reader to see Satan's challenge to God to leaving the characters in the drama, in the dark.

Series

Theodicy

Freedom and Risk & Does God Get Everything He Wants

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

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