Week 8
September 23, 2023

Why Do Bad Things Happen?

If God Is So Loving, “Why Does He Do and/or
Allow Bad Things To Happen To Good People?”

Assumption Number 1 Is “God Is The One Doing”
Assumption Number 2 That Man Is Good Without God

The Three Reasons Bad Things Happen
The Fall
The Enemy
The Choices We Make (Free Will)

The Fall

To the woman He said: “I will greatly multiply your sorrow and your conception; In pain you shall bring forth children; Your desire shall be for your husband, And he shall rule over you.” Then to Adam He said, “Because you have heeded the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree of which I commanded you, saying,
Genesis 3:16-17a

You shall not eat of it’: “Cursed is the ground for your sake; In toil you shall eat of it All the days of your life. Both thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you, And you shall eat the herb of the field. In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread Till you return to the ground, For out of it you were taken; For dust you are, And to dust you shall return.”
Genesis 3:17b-19

Satan

Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. Resist him, steadfast in the faith, knowing that the same sufferings are experienced by your brotherhood in the world.
1 Peter 5:8-10

The Enemy
The Devil Does Not Discriminate
He Shows No Mercy In Any Situation

I am the door. If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture. The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly. “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd gives His life for the sheep.
John 10:9-11

The thief comes only in order to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have and enjoy life, and have it in abundance [to the full, till it overflows]
John 10:10 AMP

He who sins is of the devil, for the devil has sinned from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil.
1 John 3:8

For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.
Jeremiah 29:11

Man’s Choices
“Free Will”

Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion (THE SEEN REALM) over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.
Genesis 1:26-27

The heaven, even the heavens, are the Lord’s;
But the earth He has given to the children of men.
Psalm 115:16

He who does not love does not know God, for God is love.
1 John 4:8

“Love” Is Only Love
When It Accompanies Free Will

IMPORTANT!!!!!
Love Cannot Exist Outside of Free Will
Example: “You Cannot Force Someone To Love You”

God’s Love For Man Is So Great
That It Is “Equal To” Mankind’s Free Will

“See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil, in that I command you today to love the Lord your God, to walk in His ways, and to keep His commandments, His statutes, and His judgments, that you may live and multiply; and the Lord your God will bless you in the land which you go to possess.
Deuteronomy 30:15-16

But if your heart turns away so that you do not hear, and are drawn away, and worship other gods and serve them, I announce to you today that you shall surely perish; you shall not prolong your days in the land which you cross over the Jordan to go in and possess.
Deuteronomy 30:17-18

I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live;
Deuteronomy 30:19

Assumption That Man Is Good Without God

for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
Romans 3:23

Man Before The Fall

Then the Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to tend and keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”
Genesis 2:15-17

Man After The Fall

The heart is deceitful above all things, And desperately wicked; Who can know it? I, the Lord, search the heart, I test the mind, Even to give every man according to his ways, According to the fruit of his doings.
Jeremiah 17:9-10

The Born Again Believer

I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them.
Ezekiel 36:26-27

But the Holy Spirit also witnesses to us; for after He had said before,
“This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, says the Lord: I will put My laws into their hearts, and in their minds I will write them,”
Hebrews 10:15-16

then He adds, “Their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more.” Now where there is remission of these, there is no longer an offering for sin. Therefore, brethren, having boldness to enter the Holiest by the blood of Jesus,
Hebrews 10:17-19

The Born-Again Heart Is Soft and Pliable So That It May Take Leadership From The Holy Spirit and The Word of God