As we get closer to Halloween and I see a lot of the disturbing and violent decorations hanging from the store shelves, it reminds me that our world, in REAL LIFE, is disturbing enough! Do we really need to put plastic heads on top of sticks on our front lawn? You only need to look at the news or check out social media for a reminder that our world is REALLY MESSED UP!
Every day we see and hear all kinds of bad news: terrorists driving cars into crowds of people or planting bombs, mass shootings at concerts, North Korea launching missile tests, crazy racism and mistreatment of people just because there skin is a difference colour, people living in poverty, starving to death, or refugees risking their lives to escape their country because it’s just so incredibly dangerous! All of those things can leave us questioning the goodness of God. If God is so loving, why doesn’t he just fix everything that’s broken with our world and stop evil from happening? That's the question we tackled this week.
GOD ISN’T TO BLAME FOR THE EVIL IN OUR WORLD
We often blame God for a lot of the evil in the world—because if he’s all powerful and all loving, he should stop all this stuff from happening. He should cause cheeseburgers to rain down from heaven to feed starving children! He should swoop in like a superhero to stop all of the drug dealers and child abusers, leaving them all tied up for the police like Spiderman does! If God can create all of creation with just ONE word, than he’s DEFINITELY able to put an end to violence and crime.
So why doesn’t he? Doesn’t he love us? Doesn’t he care about starving or abused children? Doesn’t he care about the families of the people who were shot while attending a concert in Las Vegas? Well, to answer that question, we have to look at the book of Genesis (the very first book of the Bible). In it, it tells us that God created everything- including people- and when he was done, he called it all GOOD. What that means, is that there wasn’t any lying, there wasn’t any greed, there wasn’t any hatred, there was no jealousy, there wasn’t any violence or killing- animals didn’t even eat other animals! Basically, it was heaven on earth!
That all changed, not because of anything that God did, but it was because the first two people he created made a choice. It was the first sin—or in other words, the first choice to do the opposite of what God wanted for them. Adam and Eve were tempted and decided to disobey God.
All of the evil and violence in our world is because of one thing- God created humans with the freedom to CHOOSE. All of us have the freedom to choose to love and follow God and live the way that he wants us to, or to go our own way and do whatever we want instead. That included Adam and Eve, that included that crazy gunman in Las Vegas, and that includes you and me. So then, why did God create us with the ability to choose?
When I was a kid, I got a robot dog for Christmas. It was called a Spot Bot- and at the time, it was one of the coolest toys ever. You would put in the batteries, flick a switch, and it would roll around on the floor in circles, wagging its little plastic tail and “barking” with a weird robotic dog voice. As much as I loved my little Spot Bot, it wasn’t anything like having a REAL dog. Sure a real dog would do nasty stuff like poop or pee on the floor and you would have to clean up after it, but a real dog would also run up to you and lick your face and snuggle with you when you come home and really love and depend on you. Now, we aren’t dogs to God. In fact, James 1:18 says that humans are God’s prized creation. We aren’t animals to him. BUT, when God created us, he didn’t want robots that were programmed to love and follow him—he wanted people who would FREELY CHOOSE to love and follow him—because THAT’S REAL. You wouldn't want someone to marry you one day because they were forced to do it. You would want someone to CHOOSE to marry you because they love you and want to! God wants us to WANT to have a friendship with him. He wants us to choose to love and follow him!
Adam and Eve were the first humans, who made the first terrible choice to reject God’s way and go their own way instead…and we’ve been doing it ever since. God made a perfect world for Adam and Eve and told them not to do ONE THING—and they did it. In the Bible, God tells us how he wants us to live our lives…but do we really care or listen?
Some of us do, but most of the people in this world do whatever they want. Sometimes what they want is to be kind, caring and thoughtful, and sometimes what people want is to be greedy, to get revenge, to say or do unkind things, to be selfish, and even to hurt or kill other human beings. It’s our choice to SIN—to do the opposite of what God wants us to do—that makes this world so evil and messed up. This doesn’t thrill God at all. In fact, it horrifies him! It makes him totally sad! When God sees the evil things his creation does, that breaks his heart!
God doesn’t let children starve in poor countries—that happens because those countries might have evil leaders who keep wealth for themselves while allowing others to go hungry, or it’s because people would much rather help themselves than to help other people. For example, did you know that each year about $400 billion dollars worth of food is wasted because it goes uneaten or spoils in the fridge? If that food could be collected and passed out or shared- the waste alone would be enough to feed the world’s 870 million hungry people! We can’t blame God for starving children.
God isn’t the one firing bullets into crowds of people. That’s because people are CHOOSING to do something that God hates! The bully at school is choosing to be a bully. The greedy corporation is choosing to be greedy instead of paying employees a fair wage. When you make fun of somebody at school and hurt them, it’s because you CHOSE to do the opposite of what God wants you to do. When we all choose to live the opposite of how God intends life to be lived—when we SIN- is there any wonder that our world is so evil and messed up? Sometimes I’m surprised that it’s not MORE messed up! So, it’s not God’s fault that there’s so much evil in our world… and if he were to take away our choice to do right or wrong—the world would be a perfect place—but we wouldn’t be humans- we would be robots—so God is letting this play out for awhile.
GOD WILL MAKE EVERYTHING WRONG WITH THIS WORLD RIGHT AGAIN.
2 Peter 3:9 says- “The Lord isn’t really being slow about his promise, as some people think. No, he is being patient for your sake. He does not want anyone to be destroyed, but wants everyone to repent”.
This verse gives us the reason why God hasn't yet become so fed up with the evil and injustice in the world that he puts an end to it all. God promises in the Bible that one day, he WILL make everything wrong with this world right again. He’s going to judge the world. While we can look at the news and wonder why God isn’t doing it right now, this verse tells us that it’s because God is being PATIENT hoping that more and more people will come to follow him. It tells us that God doesn’t want anyone to be destroyed! He wants everyone to repent!
That word “repent” means that he wants us to turn away from our bad choices, to accept his love and forgiveness and CHOOSE to follow him! The good news is that all of the evil and terrible things in this world aren't going to last! Everyone who chooses to live their lives the opposite to how God wants will one day stand in front of him and be judged based on the choices they made.
If we want to be a part of heaven one day, if we want to be a part of the perfect world that God will restore, it all boils down to a choice. We can CHOOSE to ask God to forgive us, we can CHOOSE to follow God’s way instead of our own way…or we can do the same thing that Adam and Eve did, and CHOOSE to do what we want instead (SIN). When we make that choice, the Bible says that our sin separates us from God. While we can't control how others choose to live their lives, what choice will YOU make?
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. When you see all of the bad news on social media or on TV, how does it make you feel? Does it make you angry? Does it make you sad? Does it frustrate you? Why?
2. Read 2 Peter 3:9 together at home. Ask your teen why they think God is so patient and is allowing us to freely choose to do evil things at this time?
3. That verse says that God wants EVERYONE to repent. Ask you teen what it means to "repent"? (It means to turn away from sin- to choose to love and follow God instead of doing whatever you want.)
4. Encourage your teen that the everyday choices they make are either making this world a better place or a worse one! Pray with them and ask God to help them resist the temptation to do what's wrong, and to make the tough choice to do what's right-- even if it's not what they naturally might want to do.
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