Episode Transcript
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Hi, I’m Kerry Duke, host of My Godand My neighbor podcast from Tennessee
Bible College, where we see the Bibleas not just another book, but the Book.
Join us in a study of the inspiredWord to strengthen your faith and to
share what you've learned with others.
How many times have you said toGod, “Why, Lord?” Why is there
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evil in the world to begin with?
Why is there pain and sufferingin this life and why so much?
We're looking at one of themost profound thoughts in life.
This is one of the deepestand one of the most important
questions you'll ever think about.
I call it a Grand Canyon issue.
If you've ever been to the GrandCanyon, you realize when you first
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see it how vast and how huge thispart of God's creation it really is.
And if you walk down into the GrandCanyon, you realize that the further you
go down into it, the more it expands.
The deeper you go into the Grand Canyon,the more ground it seems to open up.
Now, there are some topics like that.
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There are some issues and there are somequestions that are like the Grand Canyon.
The deeper you dig into them, the morethey expand, the deeper they seem to be.
No matter how much you learn,there's always something else that
arises as you look at that issue.
Now, the problem of evil that we'relooking at—this question of “Why, Lord?
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Why is there evil and pain andsuffering in this life?—is one
of those Grand Canyon issues.
You can study it forthe rest of your life.
You can spend your days and your nightsthinking about it, but you'll never
learn everything that you want to.
So this is an ocean of material thatwe're trying to look at here, and
we're just getting started with it.
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When we call this the “problem” ofevil, we're not saying that this is a
problem just because it aggravates usor because it's a burden to bear, but
it's hard to figure out in our minds.
It's hard to live with.
And so we would say thatit's a logical problem.
It's a logical problem from thestandpoint that when you look
at the facts of the matter, it'shard for us to reason them out.
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So here's the logical side of the problem.
First of all, God is all powerful.
Secondly, God is all loving.
Now He is perfect in power,and He is perfect in His love.
And yet, number three, evil exists.
So if God is all powerful,couldn't He stop all this evil?
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Couldn't He put an end to allthis suffering that we have?
If God is all loving, if He is perfectin his goodness, would He not want to
save us from this kind of suffering?
Would He not want to put an end to it?
And so how can evil exist if God isall-powerful and God is all-loving?
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So there are some people that look atthat problem and say, “Well, that's
why I don't believe in God. If Godis really all-powerful, then He would
have the power to put an end to this.And if God is all-loving, if He really
loves us, then shouldn't He want toput an end to all this suffering?”
And so that's why I would saythat this is a logical problem.
Now, we're not tryingto respond to this here.
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We're going to look atthat later in the study.
We're just getting started with this.
But I'm simply pointing out rightnow that this is a problem inside
of our heads because we look atthis matter from that standpoint,
and even as Christians sometimes westruggle with that, and that's why
we're going through this series.
That's why we're looking at all thesequestions and all these passages
that we're going to be examining,Lord willing, in this study.
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So first of all, thereis a logical problem.
It presents a a problem to our reasoningas human beings, and it's not simply that
we're trying to figure everything out.
It's not that we're putting ourhuman reason above God, but God
gave us the ability to reasonand God gave us this information.
He tells us that He's all-powerful.
He tells us that He's all-loving,and we know that evil exists.
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So it's not a wrong thing necessarilyto ask the question: how can this be?
We're not looking at a question thatis really unheard of or unknown in
the human race, in human history.
This is something that men havewondered about for thousands of years,
and you even find, as we saw in thefirst lesson in this series, that
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great and godly men in the Bible, evenprophets of God, wondered about this.
How can this happen?
But number two, this is also a practicalproblem and sometimes it's hard to
know which one is the most difficult.
There's a struggle inside ofour minds to try to figure out
how God can be all-powerful andall-loving, and yet evil exists.
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He allows evil in spite of thefact that He has those attributes.
But the practical side of thismeans that we have to live
in a world where we suffer.
And when I say that wesuffer, we suffer physically.
We have pains of the body.
I don't have to convince you aboutthat, but we also have pains inside.
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We have emotional trauma, griefand anger and fear and anxiety
and depression and all kinds ofthings inside that can torment us.
As we saw in the case of Moses andJeremiah and Habakkuk and Job and many
other people in the Bible already, therewere great men of God and even prophets
of God who cried out to him becausethey just felt like it was too much.
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They just considered all the problemsof life to be more than they could bear.
So it's a practical problem in that sense.
It's a logical problem where weuse our minds to analyze the facts
and try to reason with them, butit's not just a theoretical issue.
It's not just some kindof academic question.
This is a problem of life.
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It is a practical problem, and that'swhere the real life issues and struggles
come in with the problem of evil.
So as we talk about this subject forthe next few weeks, we need to tread
carefully and we need to be respectfulbecause after all we're talking
about God and His creation and how Hemanages it when we ask this question.
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And let's remember that wehave in mind two kinds of evil
when we discuss this question.
When we talk about the problem of evil,we're talking about two different things.
First of all, evil inthe sense of moral, evil.
By that I simply mean sin.
Sin is evil in the sight of God.
We don't have to explain that, and that'swhat many people oftentimes think of.
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But there's also another side to theproblem of evil that many people have
in mind, maybe even more than the ideaof moral evil, and that is natural evil.
That simply refers to suffering.
When you read the King Jamesversion, you'll find the
word evil used in that sense.
Several times in the Bible, forinstance, in Job chapter two verse
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11, Job's three friends had heard ofall the “evil” that had come upon him.
Now that evil there refers to allthe hardships that he suffered.
He lost his possessions.
He lost his children.
Then he lost his health.
The King James Version refers to thatin Job chapter two, verse 11, as “evil.”
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The New King James Version in thatsame verse renders that word in the
original “adversity,” that is, calamity.
So what we want to do today isto look at the question why by
going back to the beginning.
And that means we're going back tothe beginning of the Bible, to the
Book of Beginnings, which is the Bookof Genesis, because here is where
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we begin to understand what thisproblem of evil is really all about.
So let's look at some things that Iknow that you understand well, but I
want you to think about these things andreview them for just a minute because
we're looking at this from an overallpoint of view, we're bringing into
mind here so many things that you readabout in the Bible and we're trying to
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see these from a certain standpoint orfrom the viewpoint of this question.
That is, why do we havethis evil in the world?
So let's go back to the verybeginning at the start in
Genesis chapter one, verse one.
“In the beginning God created theheavens and the earth.” Now, the Bible
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doesn't tell us why God created here.
It doesn't state anything about it.
There are several indicationsin other verses in the Bible.
You have Isaiah chapter 45,verse 18, which says that
God created it not in vain.
He created it to be inhabited.
You find in Acts chapter 17, verse 26and 27, that the Bible says that God made
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of one blood all nations of men for todwell on all the face of the earth, and
has determined the times before appointedand the bounds of their habitation, that
they should seek the Lord; if perhaps theymight feel after him and find him, though
he be not far from every one of us.”
So the ideal purpose of this life,the reason that God created man
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and placed us on the earth isso that we should seek the Lord.
Acts chapter 17 verse 27.
That's the purpose.
That's why we're here.
We're not here to please ourselves.
We're not here to use ourimagination and come up with all
kinds of ideas about this universe.
We are here to do the will of God.
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We are here to seek God.
And in Genesis chapter one, you findall kinds of basic facts—fundamental
principles about the creation thatpeople really need to understand today.
If we're going to have a good graspof what we're talking about, we
need to go back to the beginning.
We need to make sure thatour foundation is set.
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We need to make sure that we rememberthese things as we talk about the
problem of evil as we consider it.
Now in Genesis chapter one,you find that God created.
He created on different levels.
He created the dust and the waterand the air, the plant life, the land
animals, the sea creatures, and mankind.
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So God created on these different levels.
Now that does enter into thediscussion about the problem of evil.
God created on all these different levels.
Now, He had the power to createany way that He wanted to.
He had the power to createone kind of horse, one kind
of tree, or one kind of fish.
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But look at all the variety.
Look at all the diversityin God's creation.
Look at all the different kinds ofbirds and fish and horses and dogs
and cats and trees and insects and allkinds of marine life that you have.
This is a wonderful creation, andGod had purposes for all these
things that we're talking about.
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Now, sometimes this is called theprinciple of plentitude by people
because there is so much to considerwhen you think about the creative hand
of God in showing us all these thingsand giving us all these things, not just
for our pleasure and enjoyment to beholdthese things, but so that we can think
about God, so that we can rise in ourminds above the creation that we see
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around us to the creative power of God.
But there are other reasons besidesthat, and there are some reasons I'm sure
about the creation that we will neverknow until we leave this life [if then].
But let's move on in Genesis, because inGenesis chapter one, verse 26, the Bible
tells us something about the way thatwe're made that many people just seem
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to forget these days, but it really goesto the heart of this problem of evil.
When we ask the question, why, Lord,is there so much evil in the world?
Genesis one, verse 26 (11:42):
“Then God
said, Let us make man in our image,
according to our likeness.” Now, let'sgo to verse 27. “So God created man in
his own image, in the image of God Hecreated him. Male and female, created He
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them.” We are made in the image of God.
We are made in thespiritual likeness of God.
In other words, our spiritsare made like his spirit.
We're not equal to him, obviously,but there is a likeness that is there.
And that simply means thatwe have the ability to thin.
We're above the animals.
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He makes that clear herein Genesis chapter one.
We have the ability to reason.
We have the ability to experienceemotional states of mind.
We have the ability to think; we havethe ability to choose because we have
something that we call free will.
Now, one of the very short and veryimportant answers to the problem of
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evil, when we ask the question “Why,Lord” is because of this one thing.
And that is free will.
Now, that doesn't answer everythingthat we want to know about the problem
of evil, but it does answer quitea bit and it probably answers a lot
more than people are willing to acceptor even think about—maybe even we
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ourselves sometimes as Christians.
God made us as free will beings.
Why is there sin in the world?
Because sin is something that you choose.
God did not make anybody sin.
He never does that.
He cannot do that.
In James chapter one, verse 13, theBible says, “Let no man say when he is
tempted, I am tempted of God. For Godcannot be tempted of evil, neither tempts
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He any man, but every man is temptedwhen he is drawn away of his own lust.”
Now again, that is Jameschapter one, verse 13.
God does not force anyone to sin.
God did not make us as robots where we'reprogrammed to do good or to do evil.
God did not create us as animalswhere he gives us an instinct that we
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have no control or any choice about.
And involved in that creation ofour spiritual side, you see, God
created our bodies, but He alsocreated our spirit or our soul.
Implied or involved in the creation ofthe soul is not only the free will that
we have, that is the capacity to choosebetween good and evil, but also God
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gave us something that the Bible callsand we understand as the conscience.
God gave us a conscience.
Now, God didn't give aconscience to the animals.
He didn't give a conscience to thetrees, but He gave that to us because
that is something that helps us to makethese decisions about right and wrong.
It doesn't tell us what's right orwrong, but it does urge us to do
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what we are convinced is right or toavoid what we're convinced is wrong.
Sometimes people refer to this as thatcapacity or that feeling of oughtness.
In other words, it urges usto do what we ought to do.
So there's no way to intelligently orrightly talk about the problem of evil,
either from a logical standpoint orfrom a practical viewpoint, unless we
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keep in mind that we are created in theimage of God and that means that we have
free will and we also have a conscience.
I would add here also that in Genesischapter one, verse 27, the Bible says
that God created male and female.
God created human sexuality.
He created male; He created female.
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And so the Bible shows that this isinherent, this is built into life itself.
The concept of male and female isfrom God, and God made us this way.
That's why the apostle Paul thousandsof years later said in Romans chapter
one, verse 26 and 27, that to go againstthat is to go against nature itself.
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So in Genesis chapter one, wefind that God created all this and
everything was good after he created.
Now in Genesis chapter two, we findthat God created man, He formed man out
of the dust of the ground and breathedinto his nostrils the breath of life.
So now man is a living physicalas well as a spirit being.
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The Bible says that God gaveman law in the very beginning.
In Genesis chapter one, verse 16, theBible says, “And the Lord God commanded
the man saying, Of every tree of thegarden you may freely eat, but of the tree
of the knowledge of good and evil, youshall not eat, for in the day that you
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shall eat thereof, you shall surely die.”
So they're created in the image of God.
They have free will.
That is, they have free choice, theyhave a conscience, and now they have
a divine law, a specific law fromGod, and they are accountable to him.
Now in Genesis chapter three, we readabout the entrance of sin into the world.
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I say the entrance of sin into theworld because sin existed before
this time, not on earth in humanbeings, but it was committed.
And I'm talking ofcourse about the angels.
The Bible does talk about some of theseangels sinning before Adam and Eve sinned.
In Second Peter, chapter two,verse four, the Bible talks
about the angels that sinned.
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And then in Jude, verse six, theBible says, “And the angels who did
not keep their proper domain but lefttheir own abode, He has reserved in
everlasting chains under darknessfor the judgment of the great day.”
So some of these angelsdid go against God's will.
Now exactly and specifically whatthey did, what their sin consisted
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of, the Bible does not go into anymore detail than what we find here.
And it appears that Satan was the leader.
He was the ringleader ofthat rebellion against God.
Now, I say that becauseof Matthew 25, verse 41.
That's where Jesus said to those onthe left, “Depart from me, you cursed,
into everlasting fire, prepared forthe devil and his angels.” Notice
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that the devil and his angels.
So when we ask the question, why is thereevil in the world, we have to go back
before that a little bit if we're going tolook at this from the overall standpoint,
and that is, we have to look at thequestion, why is it that angels sinned?
And the only thing that we canreally say about that is, is that
evidently God gave them free will.
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It would certainly go against Scriptureto say that God made or forced the
devil to sin or that he made or forcedthose other angels to sin as well.
Evidently, they sinned of theirown free will, of their own free
choice and their own accord.
So if this happened with the angels andthis happened to Satan, then that explains
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why the Bible says in Romans five, verse12,by one man sin entered the world.
It doesn't say in Romans five, verse12 by one man sin “began” in the world.
It says by one man sin“entered” the world.
The sin had already been committed bythese angels, and now it's been injected
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into mankind by the devil himself.
So in Genesis chapter three, wehave this beginning story of mankind
about how sin began in this life.
So in Genesis chapter three, verse one,the Bible says, “Now the serpent was more
cunning than any beast of the field whichthe Lord God had made. And he said to
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the woman, Has God indeed said, You shallnot eat of every tree of the garden?”
You notice that the Bible heredoesn't say anything about this
serpent other than what you read.
It doesn't say anything about the devil.
It doesn't say anything about Satan, butwe know because of passages in the New
Testament especially that Satan was usingthis serpent, or he was appearing in the
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form of serpent because you read aboutthat in second Corinthians 11 verse three.
The serpent Beguiled Evethrough his subtlety.
That was the devil himself.
Revelation chapter 12, verse nine:
he's also called a serpent there (20:05):
undefined
and here we find how the deviloperates, how he lures us into sin.
He doesn't accuse God ofanything at this point.
He simply asks a question, and sometimesthat starts people thinking in the
wrong direction quicker and moreeffectively than making an outright
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charge against the Bible and against God.
In other words, he didn't say Goddidn’t say that, that God is a bad
God, God is an unjust God, He doesn'tlove you or anything like that.
He merely posed a question.
He's planting a seed of doubt here, andI want you to notice in verse one that
it says that he said to the woman, “HasGod indeed said…?” The word “indeed”
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means truly, or verily, or really.
So what the devil is asking hereis, “Did God really say this? Did
God indeed, did he truly say youshall not eat of every tree of the
garden? Did God actually say that?”And perhaps: did he really mean that?
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This is the approach that the devilused in the beginning, and he uses it
to this very day with you and with me.
Now in Genesis chapter three, verse two,the Bible says, “The woman said to the
serpent, we may eat the fruit of thetrees of the garden, but of the fruit
of the tree, which is in the midst ofthe garden, God has said, You shall not
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eat it, nor shall you touch it, lestyou die.” Now, those words “nor shall
you touch it” are not in the Bible.
What we see is that God saidif you eat it, you will die.
The Bible tells us then thatthe serpent came right out.
He's already laid the groundworkand so he's now ready to make
an accusation against God.
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He says, “You will not surely die.”He outrightly contradicts, he denies,
what God has said now, “for God knowsthat in the day you eat of it, your
eyes will be opened and you will belike God, knowing good and evil.”
Now it's important for us to go backto this old story and to review it
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because here is the first instance wheresomebody is saying this is not fair.
This is not right.
God has told you something thatis really not going to happen.
But not only that, God has told youthis because he doesn't want you to eat
that fruit since, if you do, your eyeswill be open and you'll be like God.
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You'll know good from eviland God doesn't want that.
And so that's not fair to you.
That's not right.
God has tied you down.
God has hemmed you in.
This is not good and it isnot right or fair for you.
That's what he's saying here inGenesis chapter three, verse four.
Now, isn't that the very ideathat people struggle with today?
Life is not fair for whatever reason.
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And for whatever grounds that theymight dream up as to why life is not
fair, that's their beef with God.
That's their accusation against God.
This is just not fair.
And so Eve accepted that lure.
The Bible tells us in verse six, “Sowhen the woman saw that the tree was
good for food, that it was pleasant tothe eyes, and a tree desirable to make
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one wise, she took of its fruit and ate.She gave also to her husband with her,
and he ate. Then the eyes of both ofthem were opened and they knew that they
were naked and they sewed fig leavestogether and made themselves coverings.”
In other words, they gained anunderstanding here that they didn't have
before—the guilt of what they had done.
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The shame of what they had done is nowcoming in upon them, and they have a
comprehension of, they have an awarenessof their situation that they didn't have
before, and they seek to cover themselves.
They want to cover themselves becausethey think that they can hide from God.
This is what is goingthrough their mind now.
That is the twisted nature of sin.
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That's what it does to allof us once we commit sin.
Now, I'm not saying that that changes ourminds and makes us crazy, but it makes
us do some things that don't make sense.
Now as Adam and Eve are hiding fromGod in the midst of the trees of the
garden, the Bible says God called Adamand said, “Where are you? And Adam
said, I heard your voice in the garden.I was afraid because I was naked and
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I hid myself.” That's when God said,“Who told you that you were naked?
Have you eaten from the tree of which Icommanded you that you should not eat?
Then the man said, The womanwhom you gave to be with me, she
gave me of the tree and I ate.
And the Lord God said to thewoman, What is this you have done?
The woman said, the serpentdeceived me and I ate.”
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So then God pronounces these cursesupon everybody that was involved.
Now, if you want to talk about whywe have suffering in this life, why
there is evil in a moral sense andsuffering on the physical plane as
well, you have to go back to Genesischapter three and read these verses.
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In verse 14, the Bible says, “The Lord Godsaid to the serpent, because you have done
this, you are cursed more than all cattleand more than every beast of the field.
On your belly you shall go and youshall eat dust all the days of your
life.” Verse 15, “And I will put enmitybetween you and the woman, and between
your seed and her seed, he shall bruiseyour head and you shall bruise his
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heel.” That is the first prophecy.
That is the first announcement thatwe find in the Bible of Jesus Christ.
But let's move on to verse 16 becausewe're talking about why we have
sin, and at this point, especiallywhy we have suffering in this life.
Now, notice verse 16, “To the woman,He said, I will greatly multiply
your sorrow and your conception. Inpain you shall bring forth children,
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and your desire shall be for yourhusband and he shall rule over you.”
So first of all, there was a changein the physical and emotional
state or condition of the woman,and it's true to this very day.
Notice that he said in verse 16,“I will greatly multiply your
sorrow.” You were going to havesorrow anyway when you had children.
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You were going to have painwhen you delivered children.
So it was always God's planfor the woman to have children.
But God said it's going be worsenow because of what you've done.
“I will greatly”—He doesn't just say, “Iwill multiply” it, but “I will greatly
multiply” your sorrow and your conceptionalso evidently will be more frequent and
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“in pain you shall bring forth children.”
We don't need to explain thatto any of you that are mothers.
You know that better than men do.
But at the same time, this passageshows that it is worse today.
It is worse after Eve's sinbecause of what she did.
But then God also turned to Adam andin verse 17 He said to Adam, “Because
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you have heeded the voice of your wifeand have eaten from the tree of which I
commanded you saying “You shall not eat ofit,” cursed is the ground for your sake.
In toil you shall eat of it all thedays of your life, both thorns and
thistles it shall bring forth for youand you shall eat the herb of the field.
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In the sweat of your face you shall eatbread till you return to the ground.”
Now, that's not the beginning of work.
God did not give him the responsibilityto work in Genesis chapter three.
He already had that.
In Genesis chapter two, versefive, the Bible says that there
was not a man to till the ground.
In Genesis chapter two, verse 15,God took the man and put him in the
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Garden of Eden to tend and to keep it.
So it was always man'sresponsibility to work.
That had been true from the verycreation, but now what He's saying
is that is going to be harder.
So some of the suffering that we have inthis life, the fatigue and some of the
problems that go with this life are dueto the fact that God cursed the ground.
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And so work is harder now.
In Genesis chapter three, then, we notonly have the beginning of sin and the
human race, but we have the consequences.
We have the penalty that God gaveto them, the punishment that God
gave, and we live with the resultof that punishment to this very day.
So women and men today suffer more.
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They have to bear a heavier burden nowbecause of this sin of Adam and Eve.
Now, if you say, “Well, that's notfair,” then you might need to ask the
question, “What would you have done?”
What would we have done if we had beenin the garden instead of Adam and Eve?
Would we have done any differently?
So this is one of the reasons why weneed to go back to the beginning, and
I want you to notice in Genesis threeverse 19 that God says you are to work
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the ground till you return to the ground.
“For out of it you were taken.
For dust you are, and to dust you shallreturn.” Then in verse 22, God said,
“Behold, the man has become like one of usto know good and evil, and now lest he put
out his hand and take also of the tree oflife and eat and live forever, Therefore,
the Lord God sent him out of the garden totill the ground from which he was taken.”
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So man now is mortal.
Man now is suspect to diseases.
He is vulnerable to this lifein ways that he was not before.
So we have a mortal body.
This body is not permanent.
This body will not last forever.
It's made of the dust of the ground,and as Adam was told here, that
dust will return to the earth.
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So our bodies are suspect to accidents.
They're suspect to disease.
They age, they decay, and they finallygo back to the dust because we will die.
That will happen when the Bible says inEcclesiastes 12:7 “the dust will return
to the earth as it was.” So I urgeyou to please go back and read Genesis
one, two, and three because that willgive you a starting point for looking
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at and thinking about this questionof why, Lord, do these things happen?
Thank you for listeningto My God and My Neighbor.
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