Hey, is God behind evil?

too hard basket..j/k

a helpful insight from the pages of "A Call to Spiritual Reformation":

The Bible insists God is sovereign, so sovereign that nothing that takes place in the universe can escape the outermost boundary of his control; yet the Bible insists God is good, unreservedly good, the very standard of goodness. We are driven to conclude that God does not stand behind good and evil in exactly the same way. In other words, he stands behind good and evil asymmetrically. He stands behind good in such a way that the good can ultimately credited to him; he stands behind evil in such a way that what is evil is inevitably credited to secondary agents and all their malignant effects. They cannot escape his sway in exactly the same way that Satan has no power over Job without God's sanction; yet God remains mysteriously distant from the evil itself.

DA Carson

In other words, He produces the good and he overrules the bad. He stands behind the two, but he stands behind the two asymmetrically

The most famous example of this, of course, is the crucifixion. There is a wicked event taking place, God being killed by his creatures, and yet in the very midst of that event, the creatures are being drawn by invitation into the family of God.

It's a wonderful truth that God is sovereign and personal..

reflect and ponder..

God is sovereign according to scripture but not in any way that reduces our responsibility.

We're responsble according to scripture but not in any way that reduces God's sovereignty.

Don Carson(paraphrased)

In other words, one does not reduce or remove the other. Both of them run as it were like train tracks together. An example,

Matthew 11 we have that lovely invitation from Jesus: "Come to me, all who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." But that's the same section that Jesus says that God is hider and revealer.

2 train tracks.. you can never push the sovereignty of God to the point that God is limited or out of complete control.. so don't ever shorten the Sovereignty of God track. He is as sovereign as... sovereign.

And you can never push the human responsiblity tract to the point that it's reduced or we can play some kind of victim. ie. don't ever shorten the human responsibility tract.

don't forget your bible!

Wesley, the great preacher, towards his death, wrote these words:

I am a creature of a day, passing through life, as an arrow through the air. A few more months hence and I am no more seen, I drop into an unchangeable eternity. I want to know one thing, the way to Heaven: how to land safe on that happy shore. God himself has condescended to teach the way; for this very end He came from Heaven. He hath written it down in a book! O give me that book! At any price, give me the book of God! I have it: here is knowledge enough for me.

John Wesley

isn't it ironic..

Voltaire (1694 - 1778) was an atheist who said he would see to have the bible eradicated. The amusing and ironic truth is that after his death, the Geneva Bible Society bought his house and used it for the spread of the scriptures.

I always enjoy hearing that story..

tear your little world apart..

There is one vice of which no man in the world is free; which every one in the world loathes when he sees it in someone else; and of which hardly any people, except Christians ever imagine that they are guilty themselves....The essential vice, the utmost evil, is Pride. Unchastity, anger, greed, drunkenness, and all that, are mere fleabites in comparison: it was through Pride that the devil became the devil; Pride leads to every other vice: it is the complete anti-God state of mind...As long as you are proud you cannot know God. A proud man is always looking down on things and people; and, of course, as long as you are looking down, you cannot see something that is above you.

C.S. Lewis

early dawning, sunday morning..

There is something exceedingly improving to the mind in a contemplation of the Divinity. It is a subject so vast, that all our thoughts are lost in its immensity; so deep, that our pride is drowned in it's infinity..

But while the subject humbles the mind, it also expands it.. and is eminently consolatory.

C.H. Spurgeon

through the storm we reach the shore..

Five basic truths or five foundational-principles of the knowledge about God which Christians have:

1. God has spoken to man, and the Bible is his Word, given to us to make us wise for salvation
2. God is Lord and King over his world; he rules all things for his own glory, displaying his perfections in all that he does, in order that men and angels may worship and adore him.
3. God is Saviour, active in sovereign love through the Lord Jesus Christ to rescue believers from the guilt and power of sin, to adopt them as sons, and to bless them accordingly.
4. God is Triune; there are within the Godhead three persons, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit; and the work of salvation is one in which all three act together, the Father purposing redemption, the Son securing it, and the Spirit applying it.
5. Godliness means responding to God’s revelation in trust and obedience, faith and worship, prayer and praise, submission and service. Life must be seen and loved in light of God’s Word. This and nothing else, is true religion.

kicking screaming gucci little piggy..

There are two great obstacles to sharing. The first is greed. We want more and more for ourselves. Greed is self-centred and can only be cured by God..

The other obstacle to sharing our money is fear. We are frightened that we will leave ourselves short if we give it away; not short perhaps in the present, because we can estimate that, but in the future with all its uncertainties. The answer to this sort of fear is faith in God's faithfulness in the future.
D.B. Knox

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consider christ..

[At the cross, Jesus] became the greatest transgressor, murderer, adulterer, thief, blasphemer that ever was or ever could be on earth. When He took the sins of the whole world upon Himself, Christ was no longer an innocent person. He was a sinner..
Martin Luther

God dealt with Jesus as if he had been exceedingly angry with him, and as though he had been the object of his dreadful wrath. This made all the sufferings of Christ the more terrible to him, because they were from the hand of his Father, whom he infinitely loved, and whose infinite love he had had eternal experience of. Besides, it was an effect of God's wrath that he forsook Christ. This caused Christ to cry out ... "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" This was infinitely terrible to Christ.
Jonathan Edwards

gee.. i ought to be more grateful.

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it makes all the difference..

Because of the Cross, the message of God to the world has changed from 'no' to 'yes'.
JI Packer

Without the cross, God's message is "no you cannot approach, we cannot be at one". But becuse of the cross, God's message to the world is "yes, you can approach, by faith in him". If the message of God to us has changed from no to yes, surely our message to God should change from no to yes as well..

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A reminder

How do I measure myself? Do I measure myself by my age or abilities, or by profession, or by looks? What is it that makes me important or unimportant? What is the reference point? What is the contact? What's the Greenwich Mean Line to working out whether a person is valuable enough?

There's many views in the world about this.. but none hits the mark as accurately and sweetly than those of Jesus Christ.

He sees that we have two components. There's two issues that go on in us and he mentions them in Mark's Gospel for example:

But at the beginning of creation God made them male and female.
Mark 10:6

We are all created unique.

For from within, out of men's hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly.
Mark 7:21,22

We are fallen sinners.

Now that's a pretty realistic view..

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How good or bad are we?

A fiesty, fighting quote:

You can avoid the dilema of mankind but only if you are young enough, well enough, having money enough, and egotisitc enough to care nothing.

Francis A. Schaeffer

Why is it that people can be very attractive one day and very repulsive the next? Why is it that we are capable of building hospitals and we're also capable of building torture chambers? Why is it that we can sacrifice ourself for others and on another day we can sacrifice others for ourselves?

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Sin and the solution..

i don't think anyone else could explain sacrificial atonement as neatly as this..

The essence of sin is man substituting himself for God while the essence of salvation is God substituting Himself for man. Man asserts himself against God and puts himself where only God deserves to be.
John Stott, The Cross of Christ

So.. God sacrifices himself for man and puts himself only where man deserves to be..

Sin - I put myself where God should be
Salvation - God puts himself where I should be

hmmmm...

Blessed are the meek..

This is a very famous and despised verse, isn't it… especially in the business world. As if, by being meek, you could get anything. But meek is not some mousy cringing, walking around pretending to be all so unworthy. Meekness is that you've got a proper estimate of yourself, because you now see yourself before God. Not only have you taken yourself sinful before God, but you now see yourself comforted and restored before God. And because you have got an estimate of yourself which is God’s estimate, you no longer need to push people down to assert yourself, or, as it were, put people on pedestals. You now have a proper, healthy estimate of yourself, and of people.

The man who is meek is not sensitive about himself. He is not always watching himself and his own interests. He is not always on the defensive.
Martin Lloyd-Jones

The problem of pain..

It's a wonderful truth, that God warns people through suffering, and He brings them back to Himself. This principle was made very plain by CS Lewis, who wrote famous words on one occasion:

God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.

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