I'm speaking on a telephone conference call tonight to Redeemer's youth, plus probably some youth from 2-3 churches in New York City. Here are my rough notes for my presentation. I'm going to do my best to keep this at a youth level, yet challenging!
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Remember - TAKE THE SUGGESTED PRECAUTIONS TO PROTECT YOURSELF AND OTHERS.
WHY IS GOD ALLOWING the CORONAVIRUS?
SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD
- God rules and reigns over
all things; over the entire creation.
- Paul states, “In him we have obtained an inheritance,
having been predestined according to the purpose
of him who works all things according the counsel of his will”
(Eph. 1:11 ESV—emphasis mine).
- Scripture seems to indicate that God brings about, and
is in control of, all natural events (Psalms 65:9-11; 135:5-7). In fact,
Scripture even speaks about God’s relationship to seeming random
happenings (Prov. 16:33). He even controls what the minute details of
nature (Matt.10:29-30).
- God also governs human history (2 Kgs. 19:20-28; Isa.
10:5-12, 14:24-27; Acts 17:26).
GOD’S GOAL IS NOT OUR HAPPINESS, BUT THAT WE MIGHT COME TO KNOW
AND LOVE HIM.
o
o The goal of God is that we might come to know
Him and love Him.
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God’s goal for us is not
to have us live long lives.
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How do we know this?
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The disciples died when they were young.
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Jesus was just 32 when he died.
ALL THINGS THAT HAPPEN ARE ALLOWED BY GOD, but NOT ALL THINGS THAT
HAPPEN ARE CAUSED BY GOD
- So, God is allowing the
coronavirus to happen, not causing the coronavirus to happen.
OUR
WORLD, THE ENTIRE CREATION, BOTH LIVING CREATURES AND PHYSICAL STUFF, IS FALLEN
AND BROKEN.
- Genesis 3
- People are broken.
- The creation is broken.
- In Gen. 3 evil enters
into the world.
- People are affected.
- The physical world is
affected.
Gen 3 - To the
woman he said,
“I will make your pains in childbearing very severe;
with painful labor you will give birth to children.
Your desire will be for your husband,
and he will rule over you.”
with painful labor you will give birth to children.
Your desire will be for your husband,
and he will rule over you.”
17 To Adam
he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about
which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it,’
“Cursed is the ground because of you;
through painful toil you will eat food from it
all the days of your life.
18 It will produce thorns and thistles for you,
and you will eat the plants of the field.
through painful toil you will eat food from it
all the days of your life.
18 It will produce thorns and thistles for you,
and you will eat the plants of the field.
Rom 8 - 8 I
consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory
that will be revealed in us. 19 For the creation waits in
eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. 20 For the
creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will
of the one who subjected it, in hope 21 that[h] the
creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought
into the freedom and glory of the children of God.
22 We know that the whole
creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the
present time.
So, in a fallen, oppressed world, there are viruses. (And
tornados, and hurricanes, and floods, and diseases… )
The world is an oppressed
place where things sometimes go tragically wrong.
FREE WILL –
created agents have free will. This includes spiritual beings.
- Spiritual beings have
free will.
- They have “say so.”
- They can choose.
SPIRITUAL
WARFARE
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Created agents have free will.
This includes spiritual beings.
·
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Human beings aren’t the
only free agents in the universe.
·
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There are angelic
beings. They have free will. They can use their free will for good, or for
evil.
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Hebrews 2:14-15 - Since the children have flesh and blood, he
too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of
him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil— 15 and free those who all their lives were
held in slavery by their fear of death.
·
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In Luke 13, for example, Jesus comes upon a woman who has a
deformed back and says, “How long should this woman, a daughter of Abraham,
suffer under Satan’s oppression?” (vs. 16).
·
Peter summarized Jesus’
ministry in Acts 10 by saying that Jesus went about freeing people
from Satan’s oppression by healing them of their diseases. In fact, the word
the Gospels sometimes use for disease or infirmity is mastix, which
literally means “flogging.”
For Satan and demons to be involved, on any level, with bringing
about infirmities, they must be able to affect
matter. And if they can affect matter to bring
about human infirmities, on what basis can we argue that they can’t affect
matter to bring about other aspects of nature that seem incompatible with the
perfect goodness of God?
·
On top of this, we need to remember the
incredible stature and authority ascribed to Satan in the New Testament.
·
He is called (among other things) the
“lord” (archon) of the world (Jn 12:31, 14:30; 16:11), the principality and power of the
air (Eph 2:2) and the god of this age (2 Cor. 4:4).
·
He is said to control the entire world (IJn 5:19) and to own all the authority of
all the kingdoms of the world (Lk 4:5-7). In this light, why should we
think it impossible that this fallen archangel, along with his minions, has
messed with the natural order of things?
·
Consider also that humans have the
capacity to affect natural processes, for better or for worse. For several
millennia we have brought about new breeds of domesticated animals, for
example. And today, we’re acquiring the power (Lord help us!) to genetically
engineer everything from ears to fluorescent fish. If we as intelligent free
agents have the “say-so” to impact the natural order, why think spirit agents
uniformly lack this capacity?
- See, e.g., this interview with Greg Boyd. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k83WOX7mLSw
- NOT ALL BAD THINGS ARE JUDGMENTS FROM GOD
o
o
NOT ALL SUFFERING IS PUNISHMENT FROM
GOD.
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Luke
13
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Now there were some present at that time who told Jesus about
the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices. [Pilate executes Jewish pilgrims from
Galilee, cut down in the act of offering sacrifices.]
·
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2 Jesus answered, “Do you think that these
Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered
this way?
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o Then, Jesus reads an attempt at
self-justification rooted in the common notion that disaster happens to people
who deserve it.
·
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But this is
not the same thing as arguing that disasters come only to people who are
disobedient.
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Jesus does not
deny that sin has consequences. He does not deny that sin leads to judgment.
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Instead, Jesus
rejects the theory that people who experience disasters have necessarily been
marked by God as more deserving of judgment than those who do not.
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3 I tell you, no!
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But unless you repent, you too will all perish.
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4 Or those eighteen who died when the tower in
Siloam fell on them—do you think they were more guilty than all the others
living in Jerusalem?
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5 I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you
too will all perish.”
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[If someone
fails to repent, judgment awaits them.]
o Yes,
judgment will happen to those who live lives of disobedience.
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There is nothing here about God causing
these disasters as a form of punishment.
·
Greg Boyd - First, his interpretation of Luke 13:1-5 assumes that God was
somehow involved in Pilate’s massacre and the falling tower of Siloam. He
thinks Jesus was teaching that the ultimate reason the Galileans were massacred
and the tower fell on people was because “everyone deserves to die,” and Jesus was
simply saying to his audience; “You’re as guilty as they are, and you’ll die
too if you don’t repent.” But where in the text is there any suggestion Jesus
assumed God had anything to do with either of these catastrophes?
GOD IS WORKING ALL THINGS TOGETHER FOR GOOD.
- God is working all things
together for good, to those who love Him. Romans 8:28
- And “good” here does not
mean our personal happiness.
- It does mean: knowing
and loving God.
- But we are not capable of
seeing this. For the most part.
Here is some bad reasoning.
- 1. As far as I can see
with the coronavirus, it doesn’t look like God is working all things together
for good.
- Therefore, God is not is
not working all things together for good.
That’s false reasoning. It commits a “no-seeum fallacy.”
COMPASSION TOWARDS THOSE WHO ARE SUFFERING.
Prayer.
