The Sean McDowell Show - Answering the Problem of Evil and Suffering

Episode Date: March 15, 2024

Every worldview needs to explain why the world is broken. Which worldview best accounts for evil and suffering? This video is a recent talk I gave in the Philippines at Christ Commission Fellowship. While much more can be said, this is my response to the TOUGHEST question raised to the Christian faith. READ: The 12 Crucial Truths of the Christian Faith (https://amzn.to/3UU6l3h) Make sure to subscribe and check out some of my other videos for more on apologetics, worldview, and other aspects of culture! *Get a MASTERS IN APOLOGETICS or SCIENCE AND RELIGION at BIOLA (https://bit.ly/3LdNqKf) *USE Discount Code [SMDCERTDISC] for $100 off the BIOLA APOLOGETICS CERTIFICATE program (https://bit.ly/3AzfPFM) *See our fully online UNDERGRAD DEGREE in Bible, Theology, and Apologetics: (https://bit.ly/448STKK) FOLLOW ME ON SOCIAL MEDIA: Twitter: https://twitter.com/Sean_McDowell TikTok: @sean_mcdowell Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/seanmcdowell/ Website: https://seanmcdowell.org

Hey, I'm just curious, how many of you had a chance to come to the conference this weekend by a show of hands? Okay, amazing. Well, whether you are there or not, I'm glad you're here this morning because we're going to look at what is arguably the toughest question people have about God. Whether you believe in God or you don't, at some point in our lives, all of us stop, look at the brokenness in the world and wonder, God, where are you? I know you're good. You have the power to stop this, and yet you don't. Why do I suffer so much, and why is this world so broken? You know, some of the greatest thinkers of all time have wrestled with this question. So Albert Einstein, instantly enough, would say things like,

God doesn't play dice with the universe. He saw a structure and order in the universe, but he couldn't believe in a personal God because of the evil and suffering in the world. People like Charles Darwin, who obviously wrote Origin of the Species, what a lot of people don't know is some of his biggest problems with God were not scientific, but the brokenness and suffering he saw in the world. In fact, possibly the most influential atheist in the world today, Bart Ehrman, who's a former Christian. He went to Wheaton Bible College. He went to Moody Bible College. Now he's an atheist. He's a brilliant New Testament critic at the University of North Carolina, but here's what he wrote. He said,

I left the faith for what I took to be and still take to be an unrelated reason, the problem of suffering in the world. Now, this isn't just a question that skeptics ask. It's a question many Christians and believers in God wrestle with. In fact, Habakkuk writes this. Habakkuk says, how long, O Lord, must I call for help, but you do not listen? Or cry out to you violence, but you don't save? I have three kids. My youngest son, who's 11, is with me here having an absolute blast in your amazing country.

But when I first got married to my wife 24 years ago, she said to me, she goes, you know what, I'd love to have a boy, and then three years later, have a girl. I said, well, I'll do my best. Well, my older son, Scotty, was born in 2004, April 19th. Ready? Do the math. My daughter was born 2007, April 14th. Not bad, right? Boy, girl, three years apart. So I'm thinking, this isn't very hard. And then we decided to have a third, but it took us longer to get pregnant. My wife finally got pregnant. We went to our first appointment to see the ultrasound of the baby, and I will never forget what the doctor said. She looked at us and said, I can't find the heartbeat. Just this week, my older son said one of his most vivid memories was seeing my wife and I walk out of the doctor's room crying together because we had a miscarriage. I know for many of

you sitting here, even the thought of this brings up pain and hurt from your life. Friends, all of us sitting here have seen and experienced pain and suffering and evil in different ways and it's human nature to ask God why God why now if you're sitting here this morning thinking good we flew this guy all the way from California he's's an apologist. His job is to give answers. So Sean is going to tell me exactly why I've suffered, exactly why this evil happened to me. Friends, I got to be honest with you. You're probably going to walk away disappointed. There's a lot of things that happen in this world that we will not know the answer until we get to heaven and look back and understand what God was doing.

So the question is, why should we trust God now? See, the question is not, can I explain why every act of evil and suffering you've gone through, why God caused it? I can't and I'm not, or allowed it. I can't and I'm not, or allowed it, I can't and I'm not even going to try. But if the question is which worldview, which belief system makes the best sense of evil and suffering in the world, then I think we can begin to make sense of why the world is so broken. Evil and suffering, friends, is a problem for Muslims. It's a problem for Hindus. It's a challenge for atheists.

It's a challenge for every single worldview. Not just Christianity. But I'm a Christian because I think Christianity makes the most logical and emotional sense of why there's pain and evil in the world. Now, when we talk about the problem of evil, we actually have to get a little bit more specific. Because in one sense, there's problems of evil. There's moral evil people cause. There's natural evil people cause. But there's also something we call emotional evil or the emotional problem of suffering. Now, what do we mean by this? Let me

give you an example. I graduated from college in 1998 at a school called Biola University, which is where I teach today. And my senior year, I took a class on apologetics, which is how to defend the faith from a philosopher who is now considered one of the most influential philosophers in the world. His name is J.P. Moreland. I took apologetics with him. I got an A in his class. So when I graduated that semester, I think I was 22, 23 years old, I thought, I got an A in apologetics from one of the greatest philosophers. I am looking for somebody to challenge my faith because I've got an answer. Well, I was in Colorado in this beautiful ski town called Breckenridge. And I went in to get my hair cut. And when I sat down in the chair, the lady, if I remember, was maybe 25, 30 years old. And I was carrying a Christian book and I

said it on the counter. And she noticed that as she started cutting my hair and she said, hey, are you a Christian? I said, yes. She said, do you mind if I ask you some questions? I said, no, but inside I'm thinking, do I mind? I just got an A in apologetics class, bring it on. You see where this is going, don't you? So I sit down and while she's cutting my hair,

the first question she asked was something like this. If God is so good and powerful, why is there so much evil in the world? And my first thought was, oh, that's all you got? We studied this. I got an A. So I started launching to saying, wait a minute, you're concerned about evil, but you can't have you without good. You can't have good without God. Have you ever thought about how your question proves God exists?

I said, besides, God didn't make us robots. God gave us free will. And if we're gonna have the free will to choose to do good, we're gonna have free will to choose to do evil. I'm thinking this conversation is going awesome. She has a question, I have an answer. But like many males, let's just say I was a little clueless to the female's emotions. All of a sudden during the conversation, she takes a step back and she's literally physically shaking.

And she goes, this is a bunch of, I'll let your imaginations fill in the blank. She goes, it can't be that easy. You have an answer for everything. And I was a little taken back. I felt bad. I changed the subject, gave her a big tip. Actually, I was 22 years old. I probably thought it was a big tip, but it probably wasn't. When walking out, my friend Jason was with me, and we're walking down the street. I was like, man, what is up with Miss Sensitive? We're having a great conversation, a great debate, and she gets all upset. I will never forget what he said to me. He looked me in the eyes, and he said, Sean, do you have any idea how arrogant you were towards her? And friends, it was like time stopped because he was exactly right.

I was more concerned with sounding smart and winning an argument than caring for and ministering to this person in front of me. So now when people ask me, why does God allow evil and suffering? I typically ask a question back. I'll say something like this. Of all the questions you can ask about God, why that one? You know why I ask that question? Because if the person says, I was sitting in philosophy class or I was in a debate online, then you know it's an intellectual question. But more often than not, the person will say, because I was bullied as a kid, because my uncle's dying of cancer, because my parents just divorced. In other words,

they're not asking an intellectual question. They're asking an emotional question. Much of the problem of evil, friends, is things that we have experienced and we've seen and we're broken. And the question is, when somebody's hurting, what is the right Christian response? I'm going to tell you something. I've got criticism for saying this, but I'll tell you what the right Christian response is not. The right Christian response when somebody is hurting is not to say, why are you hurting? Haven't you read Romans 8.28?

The Bible says God will work all things together for the good. Take that frown and turn it upside down. That is not only not helpful, it's not biblical. You know what Romans 12, 15 says? It says rejoice with those who rejoice. Weep with those who weep. Friends, when somebody is hurting, a Christian response is to lean in and hurt with that person.

If somebody's happy, share their joy. If somebody's hurting, step in and show empathy. You know, I think Job's friends actually get a bad rap. They get a bad rap. I mean, they showed up with Job and they did everything right. Job's friends did everything right until they opened up their mouths. Do you know they sat with Job for a week? They were just present with him. And when they began to speak, they messed it all up. Some of my family, the McDowell's dearest friends, had a son.

His name was Cody. At 15 years old, he died of cancer. It was tragic and it was painful. I will never forget something this young man said. He said, the greatest present you can give someone is your presence. The greatest present you can give someone is your presence when somebody is hurting a christian response is to lean and be present and love and care for them and then look for the right time to begin to help them understand how god thinks about suffering and evil so the first problem is emotional but what we're going to hone in on is what we call the how God thinks about suffering and evil. So the first problem is emotional,

but what we're going to hone in on is what we call the philosophical problem. Or you might say the intellectual problem of evil. This is more the question about why God allows evil. That's a big question we have to have an answer to for our own confidence and to be ready when unbelievers ask. One helpful place to start might be to define what we actually mean by evil. Sometimes we think good and evil are equal opposite forces in competition with each other. Friends, that is not what evil is.

C.S. Lewis is formerly an atheist, one of the great literary minds of the 20th century. C.S. Lewis writes in his book, Mere Christianity, about how he used to think about evil when he was an atheist. But notice such an insightful point that he makes. He said, my argument against God was that the universe seems so cruel and unjust. But how had I gotten this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line. What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust? You see the brilliance of Lewis's point? He's saying as an atheist, he looked at the world, he said it's unjust.

But then he thought, wait a minute, if I'm calling the world unjust, that means there's an objective standard of justice. But where means there's an objective standard of justice. But where do you get an objective standard of justice from if there's no God? See, if you call a line crooked, that implies a standard of straight. Where do we get a standard of straight if there is no person who made or no objective standard that first exists? This is a brilliant point that Lewis is making. So here, think about evil this way. Maybe this will help. Think about a wrench. If you have a good, pure wrench according to its design, it might look like this.

Now what happens when a wrench goes bad? Either it gets bent or it turns rusty. You see, rust is a corrosion of something that's first good or pure. You can have a good wrench that never gets rusted. Rust is when a good wrench goes bad. Evil is more like rust when something good gets corrupted. Here's another example. Think of the example of healthy teeth. Now, some of you right away know exactly where this is going. Let me spare you the pain. Do not Google tooth decay.

By the way, the fact that I said don't do it, 10% of you, that's the first thing you're going to do because that's your personality, right? I get it. Notice something. Tooth decay is when healthy teeth go bad. You can have healthy teeth without them decaying. If you floss, brush your teeth, don't eat too much sugar, you can keep healthy teeth. But the idea of decay is when something good first exists according to its design, and then it gets corrupted, so to speak. You see, evil is a corruption of what is good. That's what evil is. So if I'm right about this, can you have evil without good? No. You cannot have evil without good. Now you can have good without evil, hence Genesis 1 and 2, but you cannot have evil with a standard of goodness to be corrupted. Here's another way to think about it that might help.

You tell me, what's more basic, truth or a lie? This is the participatory part of the program. What's more basic, truth or a lie? Truth, exactly. What is a lie? A lie is an intentional twisting or misrepresentation of the truth. So you can't have a lie without truth, but you can have truth without somebody telling a lie. A lie is parasitic upon truth. So just like you can have justice without injustice, or a straight line without one crooked, or truth without a lie, you can have goodness without evil. But you cannot have evil or injustice or a lie

without goodness, justice, and truth. The very complaint about evil is one of the best reasons to believe that God actually exists. Did you catch what I just said? When somebody says there's evil in the world, what are they saying? They're saying things are not the way they're supposed to be, or they are the way they're not supposed to be. Both of those assume a way that the world is supposed to be. If there is no God, how on earth is there a way that the world is supposed to be? Because if there's no God, it's all an accident. Now, this doesn't tell us why God allows evil. But it helps us place the question and realize

that when somebody cries out about the evil in the world, that's because they're made in the image of God and they live in God's world and we know there's right, we know there's wrong, and we know in our hearts that something is broken in the world and we're yearning for someone to fix it. Now let's dive in specifically to what we call the problem of evil and unpack this a little bit. There's an atheist by the name of Sam Harris, and I think he articulates the problem of evil, what's called the logical problem of evil very well. He writes this, if God exists, either he can do nothing to stop the most egregious

calamities, or he does not care to. God therefore is either impotent, lacking power, or evil, lacking good. There's another possibility, of course, and it is both the most reasonable and least odious. The biblical God is a fiction like Zeus and the thousands of other dead gods who most sane beings now ignore. Now, let me put this in premise form so you can track what the problem of evil is. Basically, Sam Harris is saying, if God is all-powerful, he can stop evil. How many of you believe God is all-powerful? Let me see your hands. Okay.

If God is all-good, he would want to stop evil. How do you believe God is all good? Well, third, evil exists. Therefore, God, at least one who's all powerful and all good, does not exist. Do you see the logical problem of evil? Now, there are different ways to get out of this problem. One way is to say, you know what? Actually, evil doesn't exist. There are certain Eastern religions that deny the objective status of good and evil because distinctions are artificial and we're really all one. So there's no difference between you and me today and tomorrow, good and evil. Let me ask you a question. In light of recent events that have taken place in the Middle East and we've seen evil acts that

have happened, do you find it adequate to have a worldview that says, you know what? Genocide and sex abuse is not evil. If your worldview implies that those things are not evil in themselves, friends, you need to get a different worldview. Another option is to say, well, maybe God is not all powerful. There was a famous book written a few years ago by a Jewish rabbi, Kushner, and he said, well, maybe there's evil in the world because God is not all powerful. He's doing his best. I don't know about you, but that falls radically short of an adequate view of God. So let's take these premises one by one and see if this is a fatal objection, so to speak, to Christianity. So if God is all-powerful, he can stop evil. I'm going to ask you to vote again by a show of hands. How many of you believe God is

all-powerful? Raise your hands up. Okay, looks like almost all of you. How many of you would say, since God is all-powerful, God can do anything? Let me see your hands. Okay, all right, put your hands down. I got a question for you. Can God make a rock so big that he can't move it? Now, think about that. if you say God can make a rock so big he can't move it then God is limited if you say God can't do it then God is limited think about it this way Bart Simpson from the Simpsons of course famously said can or he asked this question can God make a burrito so big that he can't eat it? It's an interesting question. What do we mean when we say God is all-powerful? Friends, let me tell you something. What we don't mean is that God can do

anything we can conceive of. That's not what we mean. Now, I won't do this right now because this is a huge church, but when I oftentimes speak to students, I'll bring a volunteer up and I'll take out a paper clip and I'll ask a student this question. I'll say, how many of you would like a full college scholarship to Biola University where I teach? Hands go flying. So I'll bring up a volunteer and I'll say, it's very simple. Here's all you got to do with this paper clip. Bend it into a square circle and you get a four-year scholarship. Go. Now, occasionally a freshman will try, but typically they'll look back at me and say, it's not even worth trying because a square circle can't exist. So I have them sit down and I'll say,

okay, I need a volunteer, but this time I need the strongest person in the room. Give me a football player, give me a weightlifter, and I'll have some huge kid come up and I'll say, okay, you have more power. Can you bend this paperclip into a square circle? And of course the answer is no. Could Samson bend a paperclip into a square circle? No. Friends, are you ready? Because I'm going to say something that I want you to think about. Even God can't make a square circle. Why? Because a square circle can't exist. A square has four points and only points. A circle has no points. So something that has no points, it's not a square. If it has four points, it's not a circle. Even God can't make a square circle. Now before you lose your mind and wonder what's happening this morning, let me take a step back

because Christian theologians have been thinking about this for a long time. Throughout the Christian church, when we say God is all-powerful, we mean that God can do everything that power can do. God has all power. So if something's logically impossible, like a married bachelor or a square circle, even God can't do that because no amount of power can make something logically impossible possible. By the way, the Bible actually says certain things that God can't do. We're told that God can't be tempted. We're told in Hebrews 6 that God can't lie. Does that mean God is limited? I was teaching high school at a Christian school one time,

and a student goes, wait a minute. So I can lie, and God can't. Does that mean I'm more powerful than God? I said, no, you have it backwards. You can lie because you're not morally perfect. You can lie because you can be tempted. God can't and won't lie because he's morally perfect. And by the way, that means we can trust God to keep his word. You see, when we say that God is all powerful, listen very carefully, we mean that God can do any and everything

that power can do consistent with his perfect moral nature. That's what we mean. So this raises an interesting question. If God is going to make human beings to be in relationship with him, and if God is going to give us freedom, can God determine that we choose to be in relationship with him and determine that we choose good rather than evil. Friends, God can no more do that than he can make a square circle. Alvin Plantinga, one of the greatest living philosophers today, put it this way.

He said, a world containing creatures who are significantly free is more valuable, all else being equal, than a world containing no free creatures at all. Now, God can create free creatures, but he can't cause or determine them to only do what is right. For if he does so, then they aren't significantly free after all. to create creatures capable of moral good. Therefore, he must create creatures capable of moral evil. And he can't give the creatures the freedom to perform evil and at the same time prevent them from doing so. He's right. Our first premise is that God is all powerful. Yes, God is all powerful. But that also doesn't mean God can make a square circle. And it doesn't mean God can make genuinely free beings

and force them to do that which is good. By the way, is God going to stop evil someday? He is. Someday, the evil in the world is going to come to an end. You know what that means? That means that you and I are going to stand before God someday and give an account for the evil that we have done. It's one thing to sit here and listen to this talk and reflect upon the evil that other people have done. But if we are honest, every single one of us, in fact, every human being who has ever lived except Jesus has done some kind of evil and caused some kind of pain and suffering to others. The question is,

what are you going to say when you are before God why he should allow you into his kingdom? Premise number one, if God is all powerful, he can stop evil. Yes, he can, but God has chosen to make free beings. Therefore, that involves allowing some evil. Let's move to the second premise though. If God is all good, he would want to stop evil. Now again, how many of you think God is all good? Let me see your hands. Okay, good, almost all of you.

Now when you and I see evil and we see suffering, we feel obligated to stop it. In fact, sometimes if we see somebody suffering and we ignore it, we think we're morally culpable for not helping. And yet, God looks around every moment, every day somewhere, at least one person is suffering deeply, and God lets it go. Why? Why? The question is, is the fact that God is good consistent with some evil and suffering we see in the world? Or could there be reasons why God allows evil and suffering? Maybe because he is good. Now, before we go any further, if you embrace something that's called prosperity theology, which says if you follow God, God wants to bless you financially. He wants to bless you relationally. He wants to bless you with a job and with a house.

In other words, follow God equals material gain. And then you experience evil and suffering in your life, you're going to rightly question God. That is not a biblical idea. The Bible makes it very clear that all are going to suffer, including those who believe in God. First Peter is written to people who are suffering, and in chapter 3, God says it just might be God's will that we suffer.

So what reason could God have that's consistent with his goodness to allow evil and suffering once again C.S. Lewis said something I think was brilliant in his book the problem of pain he said God whispers in our pleasure but shouts in our pain. Pain is God's megaphone to rouse a deaf world. He's right. Sometimes when life is going as we want it to, we get busy and we get distracted and we shelve thoughts about God. But when we suffer and we see evil,

we're reminded that this world is broken. We're reminded that we're finite, and that makes us think about the existence of God. C.S. Lewis gave an example. He said, if you go to the dentist and you say to your dentist, because it hurts, I thought you were a good dentist. Why are you hurting me? C.S. Lewis says, you don't understand the nature of a cavity, and sometimes it takes pain to get the cavity out. Maybe God allows evil and suffering because he's good. Because God actually knows the deepest good for us is to be in relationship with the living creator that leads to eternal life. That is the ultimate good. So maybe God allows suffering because he wants to draw us into a relationship so we can be with him for eternity. What if Lewis is right about that?

You know, the other thing too is sometimes it's evil and suffering that we experience that changes our character. You see, God is far more concerned about your character than your bank account. God is far more concerned about your character than the size of your home. Maybe God allows suffering because he wants us to be humbled and to come to him and to be transformed. If any of you happen to have heard me speak before, you know I'm kind of a superhero guy. You maybe noticed my Iron Man on the back of my, I'm wearing a Spider-Man shirt, by the way. So I'm going to use the Spider-Man example, just bear with me. So I'm going to use what is hands down the greatest Spider-Man actor, Tobey Maguire. Can I get an amen? Just having some fun with you. Well, the story of Spider-Man, who's my favorite

character, is really interesting when you ask, why would God allow evil and suffering? Because Peter Parker is bit by the spider and he starts to get stronger and faster and gain these powers. But he uses them for selfish gain. He uses them to benefit himself. But something changes his heart and changes his mind and the trajectory of his life to become a superhero. And that was the death of his uncle, Ben Parker. When he dies, Spider-Man wants vengeance. But these words began to change him. You all know what he said. Ben Parker said, with great power comes

now you participate. You know, that's actually a biblical idea. Jesus said, he who's given much, much is required. But friends, even in superhero movies, we know that sometimes it takes evil, sometimes it takes suffering to reorient our lives. That's what C.S. Lewis is talking about. And frankly, I've seen this in the life of my father. Many of you will know and recognize the name Josh McDowell. He has spoken in your church at least a couple times. Was not able to join us this time but sends his love. My father grew up in an incredibly broken background. His father was the town drunk in a small town in Michigan.

My aunt, my dad's sister, took her own life. My dad was severely sexually abused by somebody who lived on their farm for seven years. And when my dad tried to tell people, nobody believed you in the 80s and 90s, let alone in the 40s. My dad says something to me I'll never forget years ago. He said, you know what, son? I thank God for my alcoholic father, which is my grandfather, who I never met. I said, dad, you're going to have to explain that one to me. Why would you thank God for that? He said, son, God used that broken relationship to give me a heart and a passion to commit my life to help other people who are hurting and broken because I get it and I understand it. God used that in my life to motivate me. And this fall, he is celebrating six decades of faithful ministry.

I don't believe God caused that. But maybe, just maybe, because God is good in the sense that God knows what is truly objectively good for us, that we are made to love God and made to love other people. And sometimes it's through our brokenness, it's through our pain that we're drawn to a deeper relationship with God. This past fall for about eight to ten weeks, I went through some of the most physical pain in my life. In my life. There were days where I would just lie on my back for about two to three hours and the pain was so intense, it was just one breath at a time. I was like, I'm going to get through this. Get through this. Some of you have been there a lot longer than eight to ten weeks. And I remember sitting there thinking, God, I'm not thankful for this.

All I wanted to do is stop. But I hope at some point I could look back and understand why. God, help me have the faith because I'm not feeling the faith to be thankful and grateful when I'm hurting. It doesn't make sense. And now that I look back, I can begin to say, I see it. I get it. I understand what God was doing. And in fact, rather than making me angry at God, in many ways God humbled and broke me through that. And I see God's goodness

more than I ever did. Maybe because God is good, he allows us to hurt. Let's recap really quickly. One of the objections says if God is all-powerful, he can stop evil. God is all powerful. He will stop evil. But if God is going to make free beings who can choose, God can't determine us to only do that which is good. The second premise says if God is all good, he'd want to stop evil. God is all good. And many times he does stop evil. But because God knows our deepest good is to form our characters and to be in a relationship with him for eternity, maybe because of his goodness, God allows some evil.

What we haven't done so far is ask this question. What is the unique Christian response to evil? So far you could say we've played defense. People have criticized and I said, well, those objections don't work. What's the unique Christian response to evil? I want to take you to a story of a priest by the name of Father Damien. In the 1800s, Father Damien heard about a colony of lepers on the island of Molokai. And leprosy, you know, is a skin disease that wastes you away, and they were put on an island as a kind of banishment. And Father Damien said,

these are human beings. They don't have a pastor or a priest to care for them. So with full awareness of what it might cost him, he went to be a priest to this group of lepers. He prayed for them, he counseled them, he preached to them, he loved them. But then after 12 years, he stood up in front of them and said two words that changed everything. As he opened up his robe, he said, we lepers. And he showed the first signs of leprosy.

Let me ask you a question. Before he got leprosy, did they know that Father Damien loved them? Yes. Before he got leprosy, did they know that he was willing to sacrifice for them? Yes. But what changed on that day? He was no longer an outsider. Father Damien became one of them. And it ended up costing him his life. Here's my question. Is Jesus more like Father Damien before he got leprosy or after? And I think you understand the question. It's only within Christianity that says God didn't just send an angel. God didn't just send a book. God didn't just send

a prophet. God himself was born into human race and entered into our suffering and understands intimately what it means to be in pain. We follow a God who understands and has gotten his hands dirty, so to speak. It's interesting to look at the great symbols of the world religion, such as the crescent and the star for Islam, the star of David, the Shinto gate, and the chubby Buddha guy. What's the most definitive symbol for Christianity? It's the cross. We wear it like jewelry but a cross was a symbol of humiliation a cross was a symbol of shame the cross was a symbol of torture and the christian story says god doesn't stand apart from our pain he steps right it. So when you hurt friends and you say,

I don't understand, God, where are you? The Christian response is God is right there suffering with you. That's unique to Christianity. That's why Hebrews 2 and Hebrews 4 says, we do not have a high priest who is unlike us, but one who has been tempted every way and yet is without sin.

If you've been betrayed by family or canceled online, you can't say, Jesus, you don't understand what it's like to have your own people reject you. And he's like, I'm pretty sure that I do. If you're in physical pain, you can't say, God, you don't understand. Jesus is like, yeah, I was crucified. Pretty sure I get it. But that's not the end of the story, is it? The story isn't God just stepping into our pain as powerful as that is. The Christian story is God stepped into our pain

and the devil thought the story was over when Jesus was crucified, but that was just the beginning. The Christian story says God can and will take our brokenness, take our pain, take our suffering, and ultimately redeem it for good. That's why Joseph, you know the story, he saves his family because he's so powerful in Egypt. His brothers realize he might want vengeance on him. And so they try to butter him up. And Joseph says, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good. How did God ultimately conquer evil, friends? It's through the cross. I don't think we can ultimately make sense of evil and suffering apart from the death

of Jesus and apart from the resurrection. Think about it. The apostles thought they were in on something really good with Jesus. Hey, we're going to reign on his right. We're going to reign on his left. He's going to throw off the occupation of Rome. He does miracles. He's the Messiah.

And then he's crucified. That is literally the opposite of the direction they thought that they were going. And yet, ironically, at the moment that they thought God had let go of the steering wheel, God was as in control as he had ever been and taking the greatest evil, the crucifixion of an innocent man and turning it into good. That's why Paul, who is an apostle of suffering,

shipwrecked, starved, beaten, betrayed, whipped, stoned, could look at death in 1 Corinthians and say this, oh death, where's your victory? Oh death, where is your sting? I don't know what hurt you may be going through. I don't know what evil you've experienced, but here's what I know. God is good. God is with you. He hasn't abandoned you.

And we know at some point in the future, those of us who trust Christ will be able to look back and say, ah, now I get it. Now I understand. Our job now is to trust him. Amen? Father, thank you for this church. Thank you for the volunteers and the staff.

And just the heart and passion they have for reaching the lost. I pray especially if there are people present or watching this now or in the future who have experienced pain, who have experienced evil, who have experienced suffering, would know number one, that God offers forgiveness to them by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. And that God has not abandoned them to their pain,

not abandoned them to their loneliness and their hurt, but God has a plan if we will trust him. God, we love you and we thank you for sending your son to die on the cross for us. In Jesus' name, amen. God bless you guys. Good day, CCF family. Welcome to Sunday Fast Track. Where you ask real-life questions and we give you biblical truths. I'm Pastor Ryan Escobar with my wife, Leigh, your servants for CCF New Zealand and Australia.

And we're here today with our speaker, Dr. Sean McDowell, to answer some of your questions. Good day, Dr. Sean. Glad to have you back. How are you? I'm doing well. Thank you. Doing really well. Question number one is, Dr. Sean. Glad to have you back. How are you? I'm doing well, thank you. Doing really well. Question number one is, how can Christians discern between suffering that is a result of living in a fallen world and suffering that is specifically orchestrated by God for a greater purpose? I don't know that we always have to discern that question first. The key response is we find ourselves suffering. Sometimes we might know why. I mean, if God is causing suffering in the Bible to somebody, he oftentimes makes it clear to that person. So if I don't get

a clear word from God, I'm not going to assume God is causing me to suffer. The question is, how do we respond? And no matter where that suffering comes from, we respond by trusting God, by trying for the strength to praise God through it, which when you're in the middle of suffering feels almost impossible, to lean on fellow believers through our suffering. And ultimately, like we see in 1 Peter 3, to view our suffering as a way of our testimony to the world. I think one of the reasons God allows us to suffer is that people look in at us when our lives are broken. And if we have a hope, if we have a peace through it, that's a testimony about what we believe. So the key question to me is not exactly why am I suffering? Now, you look at the beginning of John.

What's interesting is there's two miracles at the beginning of John. One, somebody is suffering because of their sin. The other person suffers, and we don't know why. So if we are suffering because of our own sin, then a part of our response should be to learn from what we did and try to change. But nonetheless, we got to trust God through that suffering, regardless of where it comes from or why. We trust God through our suffering.

Next question, Dr. Sean. What advice would you give to someone who is struggling to see how their own pain and suffering could possibly serve a greater good purpose in God's plan? First thing I would say is I understand. I've actually been there at times in my life where I've been suffering. I'm like, I don't see it. This doesn't make any sense. And I didn't feel in that moment like, thank you, God, if I'm being completely honest. But there was a thought inside me that said, God, I want to be thankful for this. God, give me the strength, even though I don't

feel it. I think that's a very honest biblical prayer. You read the Psalms sometimes and it's like, God, people are suffering. Why? And things are not made simple. So I would just say, if you don't see it, welcome. This is part of what it means to be human is we might not see it. You might not see it until you get to the other life and look back. But what gives me confidence is what the scripture says, that God is sovereign and works good or evil ultimately for good. But I've also seen it in enough lives of other people to know that God actually works things out that way. So if you're suffering and you don't see it,

maybe try to surround yourself with other believers who have been through similar suffering and can say, I get it. I see it. Here's how God works good. I'm telling you, trust him and He will work good out of it. When we don't have that strength, that's where we need the Holy Spirit and we need other believers to give us that strength.

True. Praise God. Yeah, trust God even if we don't fully understand it. And maybe in the future, we will. We will. That is the prayer. Well, thank you, Dr. Sean, for answering our questions. And that's it for our CCF Sunday Fast Track.