Smyrna Christian Church -- Lee Delbridge, Minister
910 Concord Road SE -- Smyrna, Georgia 30080 -- 770.435.1723
www.SmyrnaChristianChurch.org
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The Creation Controversy
Part II
If God is a good God and if He is all-powerful and if He created the world, then why are there so many faults in it? For instance: why are there tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes, forest fires started by lightening and animals killing other animals for food? Why are babies born with deformities and disabilities? Why are there so many wars? Why is there so much sickness and suffering and death? Why is it easier to grow weeds than it is to grow vegetables or flowers? If an all-powerful good God created everything that exists, then why is there so much evil in the world? Why does God allow it? Why doesn’t God do something about it? These are legitimate questions. Let’s discuss “why” there is evil in a world created by a holy and righteous God.
- BECAUSE GOD CREATED MAN WITH FREE WILL
- God created man (Genesis 1:1; 26-27) and gave him a choice to either obey or disobey his Creator
- Genesis 2:15-17 - Then the Lord God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it. The Lord God commanded the man, saying, “From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die.”
- Genesis 3:6 - When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate; and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate.
- Every person has the freedom to either obey God and disobey Him
- You chose to be in church today by your own free will
- The people who flew the airplanes into the twin towers in New York on September 11, 2001 did it of their own free will
- God wanted creatures who would love Him and love is impossible without the ability also to choose not to love
- God created the planets and the stars without free will -- but they can’t love Him. They must obey Him. That is not love
- When God gave man free will, He opened the door for the possibility of disobedience, and disobedience brings consequences
- BECAUSE OF THE “CURSE” THAT CAME AS A RESULT OF SIN
- Genesis 3:16-19 - To the woman He said, “I will greatly multiply Your pain in childbirth, In pain you will bring forth children; Yet your desire will be for your husband, And he will rule over you.” Then to Adam He said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree about which I commanded you, saying, ‘You shall not eat from it’; Cursed is the ground because of you; In toil you will eat of it All the days of your life. Both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you; And you will eat the plants of the field; By the sweat of your face You will eat bread, Till you return to the ground, Because from it you were taken; For you are dust, And to dust you shall return.”
- This curse caused man’s body to begin the process of dying (sickness)
- This curse caused the birth process to be painful
- This curse caused the “ground” to produce not in an easy manner as before
- This curse may be the cause of earthquakes, tornadoes, etc. but we don’t know for sure
- BECAUSE GOD’S SOLUTION HAD NOT YET BEEN FULLY APPLIED
- All of our problems are caused by sin and God’s answer to sin is Jesus (His death on the cross to atone for our sins)
- Isaiah 53:4-6 - Surely our griefs He Himself bore, And our sorrows He carried; Yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, Smitten of God, and afflicted. But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; The chastening for our well-being fell upon Him, And by His scourging we are healed. All of us like sheep have gone astray, Each of us has turned to his own way; But the Lord has caused the iniquity of us all To fall on Him.
- This is a prophecy that Jesus’ death on the cross would solve the sin problem and remove the curse that resulted from it
- Romans 8:18-23 - For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now. And not only this, but also we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body.
- Notice that the redemption of our bodies and the curse on creation had not been removed at the time of Paul’s writing the book of Romans
- Revelation 21:1-4 - Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth passed away, and there is no longer any sea. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men, and He will dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be among them, and He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away.”
- Notice that death, mourning, crying and pain will end when there is a new heaven and a new earth -- it will continue until then
If God is a good God and if He is all-powerful and if He created the world, then why are there so many faults in it? Those faults are in our world because (1) God created man with free will, (2) the curse that resulted from man’s sin and (3) God’s solution has not been fully applied yet. Evil, tragedy, sickness, suffering and death are all in the world because of sin. God has the solution to the sin problem and one day all those evil, terrible things will be gone. God’s answer to the sin problem is Jesus. Have you accepted Him as the answer to your personal sin problem?
© 2002 Lee Delbridge
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