Pastor Baucham
I recently saw a video of Pastor Voddie Baucham. He was much younger in this video. And he was responding to the question “Why does a loving God allow bad things to happen to people?”
I have personal experience with question when a family member used it as her excuse for not believing in God. At the time it happened, my Holy Spirit assisted response was fair to mediocre at best (if you read till the end, there’s a little more to my story). As you might imagine, every time I hear a pastor, including but not limited to our own Pastor Patrick (as a side note, his explanation ranks up there with Voddie), I pay close attention.
Before watching the video, my favorite was the story of the college professor. He started his class with the assertion that God doesn’t exist. He asked the kids “How could a loving God exist and allow so many bad things to happen to people…pedophilia, murder, robbery, swindling, hate and the list goes on and on”. He used these arguments as proof of God’s non existence or, the very least, his inability to act. The professor persuaded most of the kids to agree with him until one student rose his hand. He asked the professor if cold existed? The professor replied “of course so!”. The student said “no sir, you are incorrect. Cold is the absence of heat. Cold, in and of itself, doesn’t exist but just describes the relative lack of heat”. The student asked the professor if darkness exists? The professor replied “of course darkness exists!” Once again, the student said “no sir, you are incorrect. Darkness is just the absence of light.” Finally, the student asked “does evil exist?”. The professor replied “of course it does. I just spent most of the class pointing out all the evil in the world!”. The student said “no sir, you are wrong. Evil is just the absence of God in the world. Without God’s grace, our natural sinful nature produces what we call evil or the lack of God” (I’ve sinfully paraphrased this into the way I remember it).
Pastor Baucham took a slightly different route which I think I like even better. He refused to answer the question as it was directed to him until it was rephrased in a more appropriate manner. After several frustrating attempts, he explained that the question should be “after all the sins, both acts and thoughts, that I committed yesterday, how can God tolerate continuing my sinful life?”
When I heard this, I literally stopped the video to weep and ask God’s forgiveness for my sins.
He then went on to explain that we are made to worship and praise God. He loves us so much that instead of destroying us for our rebellion, he sent his son to be born a human to die for our sins so that we could be reconciled to him as an heir.
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil.” - John 3:16-19 ESV
I’ve included a link to the video at the bottom. I recommend watching somewhere you can spend some time in self-reflection and maybe shed a few tears.
I’ve come to accept that God uses me to plant seeds and not to win arguments. Even though my family members response wasn’t what I hoped it would be, God uses me and others according to his plan and not mine. I’m okay with that.
