You Asked: Answering Common Questions About Christianity - Q10: Suffering And Evil | August 2, 2026

Ishmael LaBiosa: Only have two more messages in this series you ask. This is your tenth question, but I would like to let you know, those of you who asked this question, this has historically been Christianity's hardest problem. More people have told me personally and historically that this is the reason that they are not a person of faith, this problem that we address today. And so what I would like for you to do today is listen carefully. It's interesting to me that for some people this problem is so great that they tell me they will not believe. And yet other people, when I raise this problem to you, they don't even see the problem. So it's a bit of a conundrum to me. Some people, this is such a burden to them, they say, I cannot believe. And other people, when I raise the question, They don't even see the problem. So, what is a minister to do? ⁓ you just see people have different responses to different things. Here is the question. The question today is why does God allow suffering and evil to exist in the world? Now that is a question, but let me make the question harder. Here's how I can make the question harder, because if you get it. You probably won't get it in the form on the screen. If somebody is really deep in on this, you'll get it this way, and they'll try to put you in a corner. And today I'll show you how you can negotiate the corner. Now here's some truths. I'm just gonna give them to you. ⁓ you don't have to say yes and amen, because I'm gonna kind of put you in a corner. And I don't like to set up my congregational members for failure, okay? So just be quiet while I talk here on this thing. It's okay. All right, here's the first point. I'm just not trying to embarrass anybody. You see, I'm a kind hearted person deep down inside. The first ⁓ truth is this God is all powerful. Most Christians would say, well, sure he is. The second truth is God is all good. Christians would say, Well, sure he is. Here's the third truth evil exists. Now those three, sound like, well, okay, who can disagree with those? But this is where they come and put the screws in you. They say, well, if God is all powerful, he can prevent every instance of evil. It's true, it's within his power. If God is all good, some say then he would want to prevent every instance of evil. Yet there is evil. And they say either God must not be. all powerful, or he must not be all good, and there's the argument. Now put you in the corner. Do you see? So how do you get out of the corner? Here's how you get out of the corner. I would propose that God has sufficient reasons for permitting evil that are consistent with his goodness and his power. God has sufficient reasons for allowing suffering and evil to exist that do not violate his goodness, nor do they violate his power. That is my rejoinder to those previous statements. And what I'm gonna do today is make you a seven-layer cake. You can't eat it. It's a seven-layer cake of ideas. And I'm gonna give you my seven best arguments to give you the reasons. What are the sufficient reasons that God would allow suffering and evil to To exist in the world. Now I have to make one statement before I give you seven reasons, because If you are suffering today, this sermon is not primarily what you need. Did I say that loud and clear? If you are suffering today, this is not what you need as a first order. Because suffering is so acute. Suffering does not just challenge our minds, although it does. Suffering primarily hurts our feelings. That's what it does. And that to resolve hurt feelings takes a whole different tool than resolving questions in our minds. Because we are complex, we are multi-leveled. So today, because it's a question and you want an answer, I'm going to address your mind. But may I say, if you are suffering, you also must address your heart. You say, what does that look like? It is not seven clean arguments. I can tell you this. Grief and responses to suffering is complex. It's multi-leveled. You say, What do I need? You need someone to sit with you, listen to you, accept you as you are, and grieve with you. That's what you need. And it will come, the grief will come, and it will go. You'll think you're fine until you're not, you'll think I'm through it. And then you won't be, and that is a whole nother experience, and that would require a whole nother sermon, and I'm not giving that sermon today. Did I say that loud and clear? I said it. So some people get upset because they say, Well, I want you to join with me in my grief. Well, I do want to join with you in your grief, but I can't do it up here, I'd have to do it down there. So I'll do what I can do up here today, and I'll do what I can do down there tomorrow. All right? There you have it. Seven big ideas today. They're all on the back of your co proclaimer. They'll all be on the screen. I'll put some scriptures, I'll read some scriptures along the way, but the nature of this series requires of me to kind of integrate a lot of text. And so we have it as we have it. Check me out in the Bible per the scriptures listed. Seven big arguments today to answer the question why would God allow suffering And evil or what would be God's sufficient reasons for doing so. Here's the first point, the first argument that I think kind of sets up the conversation. Without the existence of a holy and righteous God revealed in Scripture, there is no objective standard by why by which anything can be called good or evil. Moral categories collapse into mere preference. Or power. Genesis chapter 1, a very good place to start when you're reading the Bible. It says, God saw everything that he had made, and it was very good. And so I just want to say that God is the source of all goodness, and that there is real goodness, and there is real evil, because there's an objective standard for both. A lot of people say I can't believe in God because of evil. Listen carefully, ladies and gentlemen, if you reject God because of evil, you must not just reject God, you must reject the idea of evil itself. Because if there is no absolute standard, then there cannot be an absolute standard. And you know, not because of an argument, but because of God's laws written on your heart that some things are always right and some things are always wrong because they're in the very fabric of who we are as people made in the image of God. Not only have Christian thinkers thought this, God is the source of goodness and there must be an objective standard, I was really taken aback when I read a very famous book called Night. It's by a Jewish man by the name of Eli Wiesel. And he endured the concentration camps and He made a very famous quote. He says, Where is God? And he said he is dead because he died there over on the gallows. Very famous statement. And because of the horrors that Elivezel had suffered in the Holocaust, he rejected God. And yet later in his life said he had to cling to the belief in God because he had to be able. His atheism did not allow him to actually call what he experienced evil. So he had to believe in God with all the questions that he had about God to be able to look at his experience and say that was objectively evil. Now that doesn't answer all the questions, but I will say that it sets a question in order. If you embrace atheism because of suffering, I don't think you have an answer to your question, neither do you have hope. Because you have collapsed all things down into statements of preference or power, which is a profoundly bad move in my opinion. Now you say, Rusty, what are the sufficient reasons that God would allow suffering and evil? I think it begins to be pointed out in my second big idea. By the way, these are my best arguments that I've come up with over my forty four years of existence, and I didn't come up with them. They were It's I read very carefully over 2,000 years of the church thinking on these topics. The second big idea is that God created human beings with genuine free will, so that love, obedience, and moral responsibility would be real rather than coerced. And here is what is the sufficient reason that God would allow evil? The possibility of evil is a necessary cost of that freedom. For example, If we just go to the second chapter of the Bible now, Genesis chapter two. And the Lord God commanded the man, You are free to eat of any of the tree of the garden, the tree of the garden, but you must not eat from the tree of the gar of the knowledge of good and evil, for on the day you eat from it, you will certainly die. Now this is a very ⁓ famous argument, but let me start by saying this ⁓ so that you can follow the argument. ⁓ There are some things God cannot do. That is not a statement that's out of bounds. Let me give you one thing God cannot do. God cannot sin. God cannot act outside of his character. And so now would you follow me in a little experiment, not one you that you get to use your mind with? Let's pretend for a moment you are God, which is don't pretend that too much after the argument, okay? Leave it alone. Okay? Here's the here's the experience. You're God and you're setting an eternity past, and you say, I am God, I want to do the best things because I am good. I don't want to just do good things, I want to do the best things. And he sets an eternity past and he says, Should I create? Or should I just let it be me here? Now I could make the argument that a God who creates, that is a greater good than not creating. If you're just following along in the argument. And then God says, okay, well, creating is better than non-creating, so I'll create because I'm doing the best thing. And then God says, Well, what should I create? Should I create robots who do everything that I want them to do, or do I create free moral beings who can worship me or choose to do otherwise? I would actually propose that the best thing to do in that scenario is to create free moral beings that can worship me freely. But by God doing the best thing that God can do. Evil is a necessary condition of that good. It's a very famous free will argument. I think it's a very strong argument. You say, what is the ne what is the reason that God would allow suffering and evil? Suffering and evil are the necessary conditions of God actually making people who can make free moral choices. And so, as it says right there on the screen, the possibility of evil is the necessary cause. It cannot be otherwise. There are some things God cannot do. For example, God cannot make free moral beings and also make a world without evil, or at least the possibility of it. God did not create evil, but God created the possibility of evil as a necessary condition of freedom. And that would be a very good reason why God would allow ⁓ suffering and evil to be in the world. The third argument that to me is overused, but it's Still a really good argument. We're making a seven layer cake. We're only on layer number three. We haven't even put the icing on top yet. ⁓ we're ⁓ so here we go. The third big argument. What would God why would God allow suffering and evil? God permits particular instances of suffering and evil because He is able to weave them into a greater redemptive good that could not otherwise be achieved. I quoted last week the story of Joseph. Where Joseph is brothers meant it for evil, but God meant it for good. ⁓ the clearest example in the Bible of God allowing an evil to accomplish a greater good is the cross of Jesus Christ. God allows a profound horror to occur, Jesus being ⁓ crucified on a cross, but the only way, it seems, that's what Jesus said. If there's any other way, let this cup pass from me. Let this not happen, not my will, but your will be done. And so, in the cross of Jesus Christ, clearly out of that particular suffering, a greater good emerged. That the cross was a necessary condition for the greater good, which was the redemption of all humanity in Jesus Christ. And so You say, well, why would God allow suffering? Well, in some instances, God's allow suffering for a greater good to be realized. Now, to me, that's a good argument, and it can be used appropriately, but let's not overuse it. That's my two cents. Because I like to counter my third argument with my fourth argument is that some suffering seems to serve no discernible greater good. But does not overthrow God's goodness or existence. Finite creatures simply lack the vantage point to judge the full divine purpose, as Job and the Old Testament book of Job discovered when God finally spoke. I mean, when I read what God says in Job thirty eight through forty two, this Job does God does not come down to Job and say, Okay, Job, do you see this bad thing that happened to you? Here's the greater good. And did you see this? Here's the greater good. You know what God said? Are you going to counsel me, Job? Do you know the full sweep of things? And so I don't see that God in every instance, I I'm open to the idea. So let's just say, let's just let me tell you where Rusty is open to. I am open to the idea that in a world of free creatures, that some suffering. may be the necessary cost of freedom, but actually doesn't have some greater good that comes out of it, or at least a greater good to the degree of the evil that happens. And I at least have to put that one on the table. So you say, well, ⁓ okay. You say, why do you tell me this? Because I think in some contexts you can see the greater good, and in some context, you know what you say? That's really bad. I don't know why that happened. That's what you say. And in the Council of God, we'll accept what the Council of God says. But as far as the Council of Rusty, this looks really bad and it looks very difficult. And I do could see this or that, but the degree of good that came out of it versus the degree of bad, I I don't want to use point three every time.4 needs to be used judiciously. Now, this is the fifth big idea. Which I think is also a very helpful one. The fifth big idea is the world as we experience it is the arena God has chosen for soul making. I really like that word. Through struggle-free response and the formation of virtue. Finite persons are prepared for eternal fellowship with Him. I think it's interesting when we read in the New Testament, like in the ⁓ book of James, where James says in James chapter one, verses two, three, and four. He says, consider it great joy, my brothers, when you experience various trials. I mean, we could actually paraphrase that consider it joy, Christians, when you suffer. I mean, well, who in the world would do that? And James's point is not that we rejoice in the suffering, but we rejoice in what the suffering can produce. Because then he says, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance, And let endurance have its complete work so that you may be mature and complete, lacking nothing. I want to give you a few ideas here. It's something very interesting has happened as we followed how people have been upset at this question why does God allow suffering and evil? Actually, whether you know this or not, some people say, I'd like to go back to the good old days. Well, when were they exactly? Can somebody tell me? Because if I go back a hundred years, I thought just a moment ago it feels the temperature's nice, but a few moments ago I was like, it's a little warm in this room. My I was starting to like move my jacket. Okay? A hundred years ago, you know how much air conditioning we would have in here. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. A hundred years ago you'd have a little medical problem. Grandma's got some brown paper. What you gonna do? You're gonna go to the hospital? You're gonna get something taken out. No, you'll die if you take it out, you'll probably die of a disease because they won't flush it out sufficiently. Like, you know, you you say, what are you talking about, Rusty? What I'm trying to say is life objectively has gotten easier. Objectively. Okay? In so many different ways. But people are more upset about the suffering and evil in the world today than they were in the Middle Ages. Isn't that an odd oddity? And here's the reason why. Because as the world has gotten more comfortable, people have forgotten what the world is for. Because if you were born in the first century and as The New Testament was written in the first century, they said that your life was hard, brutish, and short. If you made it to 30, welcome, old man. Okay? In that type of world, you didn't say, This world must be made for my comfort. You didn't have that delusion. You thought, if this world is anything, it's a veil of tears and it's a place of soul making for a world yet to come. Do you understand this? C.S. Lewis nailed this on the head in his book, Mere Christianity or The Problem of Pain, one of those two, that he wrote. He said, the way you see the world radically affects your mood. He said, if you thought of the world as a hotel, you'd be pretty upset all the time. Where's the chocolate on my pillow? This bed is pretty lumpy. You know, where is the room service? He says, but if I envisioned that this world is a jail. It's okay. I get some food, I get a little recreation time, not that bad. And he said strangely, the more negative you created the more optimistic outlook. And honestly, I think, especially in the entitled generation, which quite frankly is probably from the boomers still present, sorry to say that out loud. Okay, ⁓ because the the what is it, the group the silent generation? They had a lot to say about the boomers, and everybody else seems to have gotten progressively. More entitled. So that's pretty much all of you. Sorry about that. ⁓ Is that we don't see the world as a place of soul making, a dressing room for eternity. We're like, well, why isn't it all about me? And why don't I get everything I want? I actually don't think I think we've actually fundamentally misunderstood like the whole purpose of life this side of heaven is to know and love God until we meet Him face to face. That's what the ancients thought. But sometimes the moderns they think it's it's about them. Now I want to make another a quick point here, because actually this has another side to it. I would propose that God is not only has created wants to create the best world, God wants to create the best heaven. Now listen to I'm gonna give it to you this in thirty seconds. Which you could read a 300-page book on it, but who wants to do that? You know, and you can get it in 30 seconds from Rusty. Okay? So I would propose that by God creating a world with free creatures, that's the best world that he could create. Okay? But God not only wants to create the best world, he wants to create the best eternity, the best heaven. And so here's the question what would the best eternity look like? An eternity in which He forced people in and said, Look, you're going to become live with me, and this is the way it's going to be. Or an eternity in which people with good opportunity to do otherwise have freely chosen to serve God in this life to live with him eternally. Did you understand this? That this is the better eternity. So the famous turn of phrase is that the world in which we live is not only a good world. Created the hand of God, even though there's evil, but this time of decision to choose or not choose God is actually the best way to the best of all possible worlds. Very strong argument, at least in my opinion. But if you don't like it, then you come up with your own arguments, okay? That's the way I think about this. ⁓ Those are sufficient reasons. God creates not only the best world, but the best heaven. And the best heaven would clearly be. free creatures who could not do otherwise but choose him. That's an eternity, not God saying you're gonna get in the door, whether you like it or not, you get in there. that that doesn't sound like ⁓ the heaven that's the best. Now this sixth big idea is not an argument ⁓ like the other ones, but boy, it is had a lot of power to people. If most people of everything I've shared, they would say point number six has helped me the most. And it doesn't help you the most because it hits you here as much as it hits you here. Here's the sixth big idea. In Jesus Christ, God Himself enters the suffering of the world and bears its evil. The crucified God is not distant from pain, but present within it, sharing and ultimately overcoming it. As a pastor who sometimes people seek me out for counsel. They say, where is God in this suffering? That's one of the first questions they like to hit me with. And then I would say, well, Jesus is on a cross. What is he doing there? He's doing many things on the cross, but one thing he's doing is taking your suffering very seriously. And then you have ⁓ passages in the Gospel of John where the shortest verse in the English Bible is the phrase, Jesus wept. Is Jesus comes to Lazarus' tomb, knowing he'll raise Lazarus, and yet comes to the tomb and becomes angry, angry that death and sin is in the world, and weeps and not a little not Jesus cried, Jesus wept. A heavy cry. That God is with us in our grief. Most people, when I say who've experienced big traumas, I can even say when my dad died in 2020 of leukemia. And I went for a walk and I said, you know, God, I trust you, and and ⁓ but help me here. I'm grieving. And God's word to me was very simple. I preached a sermon on this. It was during COVID, and there was no church service, and I put it up online. But God said to me very plainly, He said, He says, Rusty, reflecting on the story of Lazarus, he says, Rusty, I just need to remind you that God who raises the dead still weeps. I needed that. I needed the presence of Jesus to say, I'm here with you. And I'm not rushing this away. I'm not minimizing it. I'm not pushing it to the side. I'm not patting you on the head and saying, ⁓ this is going to be better and all of that. He's just with me there. It's been very, very powerful for people. And I think that one is one. I think about a particular gentleman, a famous theologian. He wrote a famous book. He's now deceased. Called the Crucified God. His name is Jurgen Moltmann. I don't agree with a lot of other things he said, but he got this one right. A very interesting, he was born in Germany, drafted into the German army. I actually ha obviously had to f fought for Nazism, gets captured by the British, and ends up in a POW camp, becomes a Christian in the POW camp in Britain, and then has to reflect on this from all sides, being born in Germany, drafted in the army. Put in the prison camp and having to think through all of this and made it his whole life's work to try to think about all of this and put it in the context of Christianity. He's very famous for this quote. He says, God does not become a religion so that man participates in him by corresponding religious thoughts and feelings. God does not become a law so that man participates in him through obedience to law. God does not become an ideal so man achieves community with him through constant striving. God becomes the suffering, rejected, and dying one. So that man may participate in him through corresponding suffering, rejection, and death. And just he felt this that God suffered with him, that God wasn't removed, and that God cared. And honestly, that that alone has been the main argument that most people point to who say that the presence of a suffering yet resurrected Jesus has gotten me through. Now, I'm nearly done. There's a warning, however, because sometimes people like I said at the beginning, you've got to address questions of the head, but you also got to deal with questions of the heart, and questions of the heart are are not really questions at all. They're feelings and and longings and and all kinds of emotions that come up have to be resolved. The Bible just gives one caution to grief work. Here's the caution. Don't grieve. Without hope. The Bible says grieve. But it says don't grieve hopelessly. And here's the reason. I said this last week, and maybe if I say it two weeks in a row, you'll remember it. And I'll give it to you in point number seven. The final and decisive answer to evil is not a philosophical explanation. The final answer to evil is the promised new creation. God will not merely compensate for evil, He will eradicate it, wipe every tear, and make all things new so that the justice of God is publicly displayed and the world its set world itself is set ⁓ is set right. Let me say this. ⁓ Man, I feel like I have seen about as much enough I've seen as all the suffering I want. I can think of some horrific moments where I've actually left a bad side shaken. ⁓ I remember one where the man who died kind of froze from the outside in. It's a very awful death. And I was called in at near the end to pray with him. He was in good spirits, but he couldn't move. He was stiff. And the way he was going to die is that which the stiff stiffness of the muscles would become the stiffness on the lungs, and that would be the end. And I just remember walking out of his house and I'm thinking, it's like ten o'clock in the morning, and I am shot. 'Cause I am just like, I can't deal, I like I've had enough. And I'm like, Spirit of God minister to me, because I got a full day yet ahead, and this is the case. And I remember I walked out of his house and and out of this horrible suffering in his house, I walked out of the house and it was a beautiful fall day, and where he lived I could see for miles. And I thought, look at this, it's like it's like suffering and beauty all mixed up here together. And God and and at his funeral I preached this text. I want to think about this. Think about the suffering you've just experienced. Let me tell you what God does not say. God does not say the suffering that you have experienced will be adequately compensated in eternity. That's not what he says. I'm going to read the Bible for you here. He doesn't say the suffering you've experienced, you'll get an equal blessing to that in eternity. Paul says in Romans 8 18, he says, For I consider That the suffering of this present time is not worth comparing to the glory that's going to be revealed to us. Now, ladies and gentlemen, it'd be one thing to say the suffering I've experienced, if I could just get equal good, I'd be happy. But the Bible says the suffering of this present time is not worth comparing to the glory. Let me s let me tell you something. This is the end of human history. The end of human history is the return of Jesus and the resurrection of believers to life and the making of creation of all things new. You know, I often think, I wish I could go back, because now I've I've lost a lot of people, I feel like, in my life. I wish I could go back and experience this moment with them. May I say that. What eternity is going to be is not us going back and experiencing something that we have done. It will be going forward and experiencing things we've never done. To be able to have a body that's free of sin, to be able, you say, ⁓ to be able to have a relationship with that person in the past, the relationship that you'll have in eternity is. Where sin, death, hell, and the grave are gone is not a relationship that you've ever had. It'll be be a relationship like you've never had. And all of this will take place on God's new creation, and we will be his people, and God himself will be our God, and he'll wipe away every tear from our eyes, and that will be God's answer to evil, not some tired argument that can be drummed up in somebody's office. And may I say one other thing about this, and I will be done. God will not turn away from yourself. Because part of the beauty of God's new world is that He will not just forget the suffering, but that He will fully resolve and redeem the suffering in ways that the redemption of the suffering will be part of the good. And I do think the greater good argument works for new creation. And here's the reason why. When Jesus shows up in his resurrected body, there are a few things that are suspiciously present. Nail scars on his hands and a spear mark in his side. And by the way, these were not marks of defeat. These places where humanity had done its worst, these now become the badges and the signs of God's full redemption of evil. And honestly, I think you ought to think about that for a moment, that the beauty of eternity will not be that God forgets all evil, but in himself, in the cross of Jesus Christ, he fully resolves it. And the Bible says to us, I have not seen nor ear heard what God has in store for those who love him. The answer to suffering and evil is not an argument, but an event. You say, Rusty, sounds good to too good to be true. I agree. You say, why should you believe it? Because the very Jesus who will come and raise me is the very same Jesus who's already come and been raised. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is not just wishful thinking of the future. That, ladies and gentlemen, is is a is Jesus in history who lived in history. who died in history, who raised in history, will be rusty, who lived in history, who will die in history, and in Jesus will be raised in history to life eternal, and that will be the resolution of all suffering and evil, for they're never to be evil no more. From the throne Jesus will say, Look, I am making all things new. I think these are far superior arguments. than to say my feelings are hurt, so I'm just going to forget God. That God has sufficient reasons to allow what he has allowed. Now the question is before he finishes what he's going to do, will you trust him? If you're here today, you're not a Christian. Why not say, God, I admit I'm a sinner? And God, by faith, I put my faith and trust in you. Some of you today just need to come and use an altar. Not because you're in crisis. But because you just live in a Christian life. And you need to say, God, minister to me in my suffering. Holy Spirit of God, minister to me here. You may need to come and ask for prayer, Pastor Ishmaela, and I will be here. Whatever your need, the altar is open. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we ask you. God, that we do live in a world that we want to be better. And God, if we find within ourselves nothing in this world that satisfies, then clearly the solution is that we're created for a different world. And so, God, we thank you that the suffering of this present time is not worth comparing to the glory that is going to be revealed to us. That God, one day you will put an end to sin, death, hell, and the grave. And God, in the meantime, we pray. That we would trust you, knowing that you suffer with us, but God, that you have overcome, and one day we will be, and are even today, overcomers. God, may we appropriately grieve. But God, may we never grieve hopelessly. May we grieve in the hope of what you have for us in Jesus' name. Amen.

Genesis 1 · chapter mention