Truly God's Grace
If God Is All Powerful, Why Do Bad Things Happen? – Voddie Baucham
TRANSCRIPT
“Students come up to me all the time, after taking a semester in philosophy. There ought to be a rule: you should not be able to talk about philosophy unless you’ve had more than a semester of philosophy. If you haven’t had any, that’s fine – Talk Away! But if you’ve had a semester, you are ‘messed up’! [Audience laughs] You’d be better off just not taking it at all. And they’ll come up and they’ll say things to me and they thought these things out. And I’m on the campus to talk about these issues and dealing with apologetics, and they want to catch me alone and asking these questions. And they look at me and asked me these questions and say, “I just wanted to ask you…If you believe in a God that is omnipotent and omnibenevolent, then how do you reconcile the issue of theodicy?” To which I respond, “Took a semester of philosophy, right?” (Student) “Oh yes, how did you know?” (Speaker) “Because if you haddn’t, you would just say, “Listen, God’s so powerful and so good, how come bad stuff happens?” [Laughter] but I’m not going to enter the question…until you ask it correctly. [Laughs] (Student) “Worked on that all week… what do you mean ask it correctly?” (Speaker) “You’re not asking the question properly.” (Student) “What do you mean ask the question properly? It’s my question! You can’t tell me how to ask my question!” (Speaker) “I will answer your question when you ask it properly.” (Student, with humble, calm voice) “How do I ask it properly?” (Speaker) “Here’s how you ask that question properly. You look in my eyes and you ask me this, “How on earth can a holy and righteous God know what I did and thought and said on yesterday and not kill me in my sleep last night?” [Audence says “Hmmmmm.”] You ask it that way, and we can talk. But until you ask the question that way, do you don’t understand the issue. Until you ask the question that way, you believe the problem is out there. Until you ask the question that way, you believe that there are somehow some individuals who in and of themselves deserve something other than the wrath of Almighty God! Until you ask me the question that way, until you flip the script and ask the question this way, and say “Why is it that we are here today? Why has he not consumed and devoured each and every one of us? Why?! Why, oh God, does Your judgment and Your wrath tarry?” When you ask it that way, you understand the issue. When you ask it the other way, you believe in the supremacy of man. How dare God not employ his power on behalf of all mighty man. You flip the question around, you believe in the supremacy of Christ.
How dare I steal his air? Because the last breath I took, I borrowed it from Him. And I’m never going to give it back. And when you borrow something he never give it back, you’re stealing. [Audience laughs] So we need to take a moment and get right, right now. [Audience laughs] The problem is… me. The problem is the fact that I do not acknowledge the supremacy of Christ in truth. The problem is, I start with me as a measure of all things. The problem is, I judge God based upon how well he carries out ‘my’ agenda for the world. And I believe on the supremacy of ‘me’ in truth. And as a result, I want a God who is omnipotent but not sovereign. If I have a God who is omnipotent but not sovereign, I can wield his power. But if my God is both omnipotent and sovereign, I am at his mercy.”
https://youtu.be/Ymh5PdvS-S0
