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THE GOODNESS OF GOD AND THE PROBLEM OF EVIL
Script of Sermon (unedited) Delivered by James Lim on March 25, 2007

Did God wind up the world like a clock and then go off and leave it to run down? Is He even aware of what is going on in the world today? Does He aware of us and what is happening in our life? Does He care? Is there any way to reach out and make contact with God? Does He hear my prayers? There are some of the question that men are asking today about God. When life becomes hard, when we can't solve our problems we will ask question like these.

The answer to all these questions is that God does continue to concern Himself with our world. He created it; He sustains it.

Psalms 55:22 : Cast your cares on the LORD and he will sustain you; he will never let the righteous fall

Most meaningful of all, He is deeply concerned about every person who lives - young and old, rich or poor, great or small. In long time ago Jesus said, “Are not five sparrows sold for two pence? and not one of them is forgotten in the sight of God. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not; ye are of more value than many sparrows” (Luke 12:6-7). Jesus was saying simply that if God is concerned about the relatively unimportant sparrow, He must be deeply concerned about man.

1 Peter 5:7 : Cast all your anxiety on Him because He cares for you

One of the most difficult is the question “How could a God of infinite goodness create a world with so much evil in it?” Many people are deeply disturbed by evil in our world and cannot understand how God allows such evil exist. They speak of sickness, suffering and violent, destructive acts of nature.

We will never know tomorrow may bring. God has plan everything for us. Man's knowledge is limited. Just as a child cannot possibly understand the adult world, so man does not have the perspective to understand fully the nature of God and the makeup of the universe. Man's "line of slight" is often limited and his conclusions are often inaccurate. As Solomon said it in the Proverbs, “there is a way which seem right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death” (Proverbs 14:12). Man is often mistaken. So, we must not ask negative questions, but rather put our faith and trust in God's amazing power.

There are many times when we cannot possibly understand a situation in life until we have heard the rest of the story. For example, in Genesis the story of Joseph. This boy could not possibly have understood why his brother sold him into bondage and why his father did not buy him back from slave traders - that is, until the rest of the story unfolded and he could comprehend the purpose of it all.

Man's conception of what is good is often mistaken. Almost all mankind considers a thing good if it gives pleasure and a thing bad if it causes pain. Every story must end, "And they live happily ever after."

To evaluate everything as good or bad in terms of whether it gives us pleasure or pain is certainly celf-centered. There is greater good than pleasure and greater evil than pain. Man does not exist primarily to be happy. Man, the creature exits in order to glorify God the Creator. Romans 15:5-6

People make mistake of blaming God for all the suffering in this world
God is not the real ruler in this world
the real ruler of this world is Satan the Devil.
(1 John 5:19) : The whole world is lying in the power of the wicked one.
Why there is evil in this world?
He is the Almighty, he has the power to stop it.
Why does he hold back? This is because God give time to change. How wonderful is our God.

WHY THERE IS EVIL IN THIS WORLD?
Firstly, the regularity of law. We find it stated in the Scriptures when we read, "in the beginning God created the heaven and the earth" (Genesis 1:1). as that opening chapter of the book of the bible unfolds we read that the various kinds of plants and of animals brought forth "after their kind" Other evidences of as ordered system of natural laws are set forth. In Genesis 8:22, as a further example, we read, "While the earth remain, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease." God planned the universe so that it would be run by a system of natural laws, and by these laws everything functions. Without these laws life would be impossible. A world of chance would be chaotic.

It is precisely because of the universal laws of nature that storms occasionally occur. God's plan of causing the sun to evaporate the oceans, of winds carry the moisture in the form of clouds over the mainland, and of atmosphere conditions which cause rain creates the possibility of flood.

Gravity can be cruel, when someone falls from height and is crushed in the fall; but without gravity it would not be possible for normal activities of life to go on. Similarly, fire is destructive on occasion , but without fire it would not be possible to cook man's food, nor to provide power for many of life's activities. Sunshine and rain are great blessings, though occasionally the sun causes droughts and the rain causes floods. It is necessary to look at total picture. If we look at all of nature we find that it is very good indeed. The occasionally destructive aspects of nature are so few in comparison with its blessings that the verdict must be solidly in favor of God's system.

Secondly, there is the freedom of man's will. When God chose to make man He paid us great honor by giving us freedom of will and making us a creature of choice. We are not robot, but a creature of free will. God make it possible for man to choose evil as well as good. If man was to have freedom of will, he might choose evil as well as good. Man's misuse of his freedom has brought untold suffering to humanity.

God is not responsible for much or even most of man's suffering because they come from man's own unfortunate choices.

God did not cause a man to murder someone and get himself in jail. That was his own decision and his suffering was a result of his wrong choice. This is not God's act.

Let us ask ourselves first of all what Christ's attitude to pain and death was. This we can rapidly ascertain if we look at his most prominent activity in life, which was, of course, going about healing and doing good. This means simply that he made it his job to reverse pain and death. He raised Lazarus and Jairus' daughter from the dead. Christ's apostles referred to death as the last enemy.

God's goodness is overwhelming. God's way is the best way. It is the most reasonable way. It is the only way.

There is one thing more, a very important one. Even though God cannot take away the evil that is inherent in the world, He does promise that if we love Him He will see us through. It was the apostle Paul in writing to the Romans who assured us, "and we know that to them that love God all things work together for good, even to them that are called according to his purpose" (Romans 8:28). This does not say that all things are good, but if we are lover of God He will see that all things work together for our ultimate good.

It is for these reasons that we believe in the goodness of God, in spite of the evil that is sometimes so distressing and so painful in our world. When one sees all of life and understands the reason behind life's suffering, i believe he will agree with the judgment which God Himself declared in the Genesis story of creation. "and God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good" (Genesis 1:31)

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