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HopeLives365

Sabbath School 1st Quarter 2025: God's Love and Justice

Mark Finley

01 God Loves Freely

02 Covenantal Love

03 To Be Pleasing to God

04 God is Passionate and Compassionate

05 The Wrath of Divine Love

06 God’s Love of Justice

07 The Problem of Evil

08 Free Will, Love, and Divine Providence

09 The Cosmic Conflict


This week's lesson, the problem of evil, is 1 really of the most significant lessons I think in our entire series. As I've traveled in evangelism for over 57 years now, you know this is my 58th year in ministry. 1 of the questions that people ask me is this, if God is so good, why is the world so bad? If God is a God of love, why does he allow suffering? And if he's a God of power, why doesn't he stop the suffering in our world?

Although we can't fully answer all of those questions, we're going to answer a number of them in our lesson today. So let's pray. Father in heaven, we thank you for your love and kindness. We thank you in the midst of an evil, sinful world that you are there to encourage, to guide, and to strengthen us. And I pray now that you would be with us as we go through this lesson together.

In Christ's name, amen. The origin of evil in many people's minds is a very confusing question. In fact, a number of people that are atheists say, we're atheists because the world is so bad and if God was a good God, he wouldn't allow this world to be like it is. Perhaps the greatest problem facing Christianity today is the problem of evil. How to reconcile the fact that God is perfectly good and loving with the fact that there's evil in the world.

Ellen White in the book Great Controversy, page 492, puts it this way, to many minds, the origin of sin and the reason for its existence are a source of great perplexity. They see the work of evil with its terrible results of woe and desolation, and they question how all this can exist under the sovereignty of 1 who is infinite in wisdom, in power, and in love. Here is a mystery of which they find no explanation." So what she's saying is, look, this is a mystery that people can't find an explanation for, and they get so perplexed over the problem of evil. In this week's lesson, 1 of the things that really stood out to me was the fact that the Bible writers wrestled with the very same question. That this question of the origin of evil, this question of evil in the world and God's goodness and wickedness and God's love and injustice all around us, that this question is a question, it's not a new question, it's a question that the Bible writers wrestled with.

For example, you take Job who suffered so much, chapter 30, verse 26, And Job says this, but when I looked for good, evil came to me. And when I waited for light, then came darkness. My heart is in turmoil and cannot rest. Days of affliction confront me. I go about mourning, but not in the sun." So here Job is saying, I don't understand what's going on.

Look at Jeremiah chapter 12 verse 1. So the idea of raising the question, if God is good, why is the world so bad? That question is an ageless question that's been raised down through the centuries and Bible writers wrestled with it. Look, Jeremiah 12 verse 1, Righteous are you, O Lord, when I plead with you. Yet let me talk with you about your judgments.

Why does the way of the wicked prosper? Why are those happy who deal so treacherously?" So Here, Jeremiah is saying, Lord, I look around me and it's this evil, but yet I'm looking and I'm seeing wicked people prospering. Lord, why is that? Jeremiah 13, verse 22. 13, verse 22.

Similar question. And if you say in your heart, why have these things come upon me? For the greatness of your iniquity, your skirts have been uncovered, your heels may bear. In other words, here, Jeremiah is saying, why did these things ever happen? Why did they come upon me?" 1 more, and this will be Psalm 10, verse 1.

Psalm 10, verse 1. And here the psalmist is almost challenging God in this. When the psalmist looks at all of the evil, the wickedness, what's going on, and he challenges God, he asks God this question. He says in Psalm 10, verse 1, Why do you stand far off, O Lord? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?

The wicked in his pride persecutes the poor. Let them be caught in the pots which they've devised. God, why are you standing so far off? These texts, many, many others, raise questions that are still with us today. Why does it seem as though the wicked prosper and those who do evil benefit from their evil?

Perhaps not always, that always doesn't happen, but it happens often enough. Why do the righteous suffer so much? Why is it God does not step in to stop that suffering. Why does God sometimes appear to be far from us? Now, 1 thing that we can notice is this.

When Christ hung on the cross, He bore the pain and the suffering of all evil. And remember when Jesus hung on the cross in Matthew chapter 27, verse 46, he cried, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Here we hear the cry of a heartbroken son, Jesus, who is separated from his father and cannot see the glory of his father's face. Here in Matthew 27, verse 46, We see the essence of injustice, the essence of unrighteousness, the essence of evil, all poured out upon Jesus. So how do you understand the cross?

The cross, the suffering of Christ, the evil that he bears, the sin that he bears, the condemnation as a result of the sins of the world, his death is going to bring eternal life. And so what, How does that help to resolve the problem of evil? It says simply this, that all of the evil in the world that was focused upon Jesus and all the sins of the world that were focused upon Jesus when he died, they were focused upon him who knew no sin. He did not deserve to get the whipping in Pilate's judgment hall. He did not deserve to have the crown of thorns upon his head.

He did not deserve to have the nails through his hands. But he bore it all to gain eternal life for you and for me, to let us know that 1 day we can be delivered from this sinful world. In his life, he demonstrated the Father's love. He touched the eyes of the blind and they were opened the ears of the deaf and they were unstopped The withered man's arm and it was healed. He caused the lame to run and walk again.

He raised the dead That's what the father is like and on the cross. He bore the evil of this world to reveal to you and me that 1 day sin would be over and all the evil of the world would be finished. Now, when you and I think of evil, we think of wickedness, we think of the things going on. 1 thing is to remember there are many things that we do not know, that our knowledge is very, very limited. So Job's going through his suffering, Job's going through his heartache, and God speaks to Job in Job chapter 38.

And I think this passage in Job is very, very instructive. Job chapter 38, verse 1 to 12. The Lord answers Job out of the whirlwind and says, who is this who darkens counsel by words without knowledge? In other words, Job, you don't know what you're talking about. Now prepare yourself like a man.

I'll question you, Job, and you'll answer me. Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding, who determined its measurements? Surely you know. Who stretched the line upon him?

To what were its foundations fastened? Or who laid its cornerstone when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy?" So here God asks Job these profound questions about the creation of the universe, and what he's really saying to Job is, Job, look, there are tears in your eyes, and your body is wracked with pain, and you've lost your possessions, your family has been touched, But you really don't know what's going on here. There's something going on behind the scenes. And Job chapter 1 and chapter 2 explains to us what Job didn't know, and that is that there was a great controversy between good and evil, between Christ and Satan, that was waging in the universe. And in Job chapter 42, verse 3, Job comes to the end of the book and Job comes to realization where he says in Job 42, verse 3, "'You asked, who is this who hides counsel without knowledge?

Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand. In other words, by his responses to Job, God made it clear to Job that there are many things that Job didn't know and didn't understand. And like Job, we too should humbly recognize that there are many things going on in the world and behind the scenes that we don't know about. The fact that we might know the answers to our questions, might not know the answers to our questions, doesn't mean that there are no good answers. You know, this passage in Job 38 and Job 42, in Job 38, you know, where it says, who is this who darkens counsel by words without knowledge?

There is a Bible translation that translates it this way. Why do you talk so much about what when you know so little? And so what God is saying to Job, there's a big picture here. You have such limited knowledge, you can just see what is, but you don't see the cosmic controversy. You don't see the battle between Christ and Satan.

You don't see what's really going on. So the lesson here for us is, don't judge prematurely. Don't become discouraged prematurely, my friend. When you go through suffering and difficulty, there may be a bigger, larger plan, and there certainly is that God has for your life in spite of that. Tuesday's lesson is called The skeptical theist.

That was a term that I was not familiar with, but the more I studied it and pondered upon it, the more I thought it made a lot of sense. The skeptical theist. What's that mean? It means that here's a person that believes that God has good reasons for acting the way he does. But since I have limited knowledge, I should not expect to understand everything.

So the skeptical theist is 1 who believes in God, believes that God has very good reasons for acting the way he does, but it's also a person that has limited knowledge and limited ability to fully, completely understand. And 1 way of approaching, this is third paragraph down, Tuesday's lesson, 1 way of approaching the problem of evil based on recognizing how little we know is called skeptical theism. The skeptical theist is 1 who believes God has good reasons for acting as he does, like I explained. But given our limited knowledge, we should not expect to be in a position to know just what those reasons are. So we're not always going to understand, and we have to accept that.

You read Psalm 73, for example. We're going to look here at Psalm 73, and you see this revealed in the 73rd chapter of Psalm. It's a long psalm, and in that psalm, Starting with verse 1, truly God is good to Israel, to such as are pure in heart. But as for me, my feet are almost stumbled, my steps are nearly slipped, for I was envious of the boastful when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. So David is saying, I saw their prosperity, I saw that.

They scoff, verse 8, and speak wickedly concerning oppression. They speak loftily, they set their mouth against the heavens as their tongue walks through the earth. So these wicked people, they're boasting, You know, and they're proud. It was too painful for me. Now, don't miss this, verse 17.

Until I went to the sanctuary of God, then I understood their end. When you see wickedness all around you, Let your eyes be directed above you, not what's going on around you. Look at the sanctuary. And what do we see in the sanctuary? We see 1 day, the day of atonement.

We see God judging all evil. We see God putting an end to evil. We also see Christ interceding for us today to give us strength and courage. We see the way of salvation open. So the sanctuary reveals the point of salvation.

The sanctuary reveals a Christ who intercedes for us and strengthens us. The sanctuary reveals that God is just and 1 day all evil will indeed be judged. And then in verse 28 of Psalm 73, it says, "'But it is good for me to draw near to God. "'I've put my trust in the Lord God, that I may declare all your works. So he starts out by saying, the wicked are prospering, the evil is going prolifically throughout the earth, what am I gonna do?

Then he says, I look to the sanctuary. And there I saw Jesus, and I saw him interceding, and I saw that there would be a just God. Therefore, I trust God, not simply to deliver me from all evil, all suffering, all heartache, but I trust God that he is going to be with me, and 1 day evil will be done away with, eradicated forever. We jump over to Wednesday's lesson, the free will defense. The free will defense simply says this, if God would have taken away free will from Lucifer, there would be no evil.

But if there is no evil, then human beings become robots. They simply become mere autonomons. They simply become mechanical beings. And if you do not have free will, you cannot have love because love necessitates the ability to choose. When you look at the subject of free will, you can go back to Genesis chapter 2.

Remember God put 2 trees in the garden, the tree of knowledge of good and evil and the tree of life. And there Adam and Eve had to choose if they would eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, and made that choice that God gave them. Why did he put that tree in the garden? Because you can never have love unless you have free will. Genesis chapter 2 verse 16 and 17.

The Lord God commanded the man saying, of every tree of the garden you may freely eat. But of the tree of knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day you eat of it you shall surely die. So what God is saying to Adam and Eve, our first parents, you have a choice. I don't want you to be robot beings. Love necessitates freedom, and freedom necessitates choices.

C.S. Lewis, a religious writer, theologian, philosopher, says, free will, though it makes evil possible, is the only thing that makes possible any love or goodness or joy worth having. A world of automata, of creatures that worked like machines would hardly be worth creating. The happiness which God designs for his higher creatures as is the happiness of being freely, voluntarily united to him and to each other. And for that, they must be free.

God created human beings to love and love can never be commanded. Love can never be forced. Love can never be coerced. Love necessitates choice. In Thursday's lesson, we read about love and evil.

God has granted creatures free will because it is necessary for love. Misuse of this free will is the cause of evil. Ellen White, in the book Desire of Ages, page 22, makes this classic statement. You know, the more I read The Gift of Prophecy, the more I see the depth of understanding of this great controversy in the world. Seventh-day Adventists are unique in understanding the great controversy between good and evil.

The earth was dark through the misapprehension of God. I'm reading Desire of Ages, page 22, and I'm reading from the second paragraph in Thursday's lesson. The earth was dark through misapprehension of God. That the gloomy shadows might be lightened, that the world might be brought back to God. Satan's deceptive power was to be broken.

This, Now get this, this could not be done by force. The exercise of force is contrary to the principles of God's government. He desires only the service of love, and love cannot be commanded. It cannot be won by force or authority. Only by love is love awakened.

To know God is to love him. His character must be manifest in contrast to the character of Satan. Then our author says, without free will there could be no love. And if God is love, then it seems clear that it is not really an option for God to negate love or freedom needing, needed for love to exist. Love necessitates choice.

Choice necessitates freedom to make the wrong choices. And the freedom to make the wrong choices indicates that there would be a possibility, if those wrong choices were made, of evil. So love has allowed evil to exist to ensure the security of the universe forever. As we respond to God's love, we can have the absolute assurance that 1 day righteousness will reign. 1 day all of evil will be destroyed.

1 day the universe will see that God was loving and just and kind. They will see that the cross revealed the depth and immensity of God's love. And as we reveal that love to others, the universe will see in us, in a world of wickedness, injustice, suffering, they will see the love of God manifest. And Jesus 1 day will say, it's enough. Romans chapter 8 verse 18 says, the sufferings of this world are not compared to the gory that will be revealed.

My friend, whatever you suffer, whatever heartache you are going through, whatever difficulty you're experiencing, the suffering you're experiencing will never, never, ever be compared to the glory that it'll be revealed when Jesus comes. I love that old song, it'll be worth it all. It'll be worth it all when we see Jesus. Revelation 21.3 says that the holy city will descend, verses 1 and 2, and God himself shall be with them and be their God. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes and there'll be no more sickness or suffering or heartache or death.

Yes, there is evil. Why? Because God's given the human race freedom of choice. We have limited knowledge, we'll never understand all of it, but this we know, this we know, this we know, 1 day evil will be gone forever, and we'll live in a land where suffering and heartache and sickness are over. Let's pray.

Father in heaven, we thank you with all of our hearts that you're going to demolish evil. We thank you as well that although we have limited knowledge and finite understanding, that you will never leave us or forsake us, that you'll be with us in suffering, and you'll always place within our heart that hope that Jesus is coming again, and every tear will be wiped from our eyes and there'll be no more pain. In Jesus' name, amen. Or if you

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Series

Sabbath School 1st Quarter 2025: God's Love and Justice

07 The Problem of Evil

Parent Series

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Recorded

Other Teachings in Series

01 God Loves Freely

21m

02 Covenantal Love

23m

03 To Be Pleasing to God

24m

04 God is Passionate and Compassionate

24m

05 The Wrath of Divine Love

23m

06 God’s Love of Justice

26m

07 The Problem of Evil

21m

08 Free Will, Love, and Divine Providence

23m

09 The Cosmic Conflict

21m

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