Why Would God? His Perfect Plan in a Corrupt World

Today on the Renewed Mindsets podcast. Why would God make a world that would become so corrupt? Why would God just allow man to fall? Why wouldn't God control- alt-delete, the whole thing? Why is abbreviated such a long word? I'll answer most.. some of these right now. Hit it boys. Hey, welcome to the Renewed Mindsets podcast. I'm so glad you're here. I'm Rick, and today I'm going to answer some why questions. Why do birds suddenly appear Every time you are near? Maybe not that one, hoser. I will try to answer the why-would-God-dot-dot-ones, though. Let's go Y'all. This episode has given me fits. Now what you're listening to is my third attempt at giving you something that looks like what I see in my head. The first one was going nowhere. I deleted it in the middle of writing it. The second one was written and recorded and I just wasn't feeling it, so I deleted that. It was like four or five hours of work and it hurt. You know what that makes me mad, but if I'm going to put out a podcast that adds value to your lives, I can't be feeling like the message is flawed in any way. Deleting it was easy once I realized that flawed was unacceptable. That got me thinking in the rabbit hole of my brain. Why didn't God just delete creation? I mean, when he created the heavens and the earth and all the plants and animals, it was perfect. The first chapter of Genesis tells us that God saw that it was good. Then everything fell apart. I mean, adam and Eve had one job One job, thanks. Now we're all living in a broken world that's destined for destruction. We appreciate you. Now. God is all seeing, all knowing of everything. He knows what will happen. He knows all the past, present and future. He's omniscient. He knew Adam and Eve would disobey Him, and he knew that their sin would not only condemn them but all the future generations, as well as the earth itself. So why didn't God just delete it all and start over? Take it further. Why did God even bother at all? Why did he create this world if he knew that it was all going to go terribly wrong? Welcome to Jurassic Park. Oh man, dinosaurs. That's a whole other question for God. Now I'm not going to lie and say that I came up with this question on my own. Humans have been asking this one since the beginning. I didn't start some gigantic Bible study to find the answer either, just so that I could be biblically and logically correct. I just did a Google search and made it my own. I mean, there really isn't an answer that can be proven to us. You can disagree if you want. I was just looking for a new angle to present it. God never does say why he continued putting up with all of our shenanigans that just corrupted his creation. Why he did it Knowing it would end up going south, I don't know. He doesn't say so. Getting on to it, I'm going to start with several options that we've heard before, and I'm going to dismiss them right off the bat because, as a believer, my assumption is going to be that God is good and perfect. So what happened? I got you three options here. First one is God made creation perfect, but somehow it went wrong and he had to get his son to do a quick rescue job. Now, on the surface, that might seem plausible. Genesis 1 doesn't tell us that God anticipated any problems. You can even imagine him nodding with a big old smile at the end of each of the first six days, saying Alive, it's alive, it's alive, and that's a great movie. Young Frankenstein. That's Frankenstein. So he's happy. Then they eat the fruit. I wonder what he'll say when we ask him what that was like. Worst day of my life. What do you think? But saying that creation didn't quite turn out as expected says that God had lost control of his product. Now, remember what I said before. My assumption is that God is all powerful and all knowing, I had to dismiss this option. If God wasn't in full control, then everything that I believe now would fall apart. So let's move on. Next. Okay, the second option is God made creation in a way so that this would happen, so that he could send his Son to earth to show his glory. Now, this idea might seem to fit with why God made creation. The heavens declare the glory of God, the skies proclaim the work of his hands. That's Psalm 19:1. It makes it sound like God is a director of a movie and he somehow arranged it all so that man would sin and then he'd send his son down to show his mercy and love. Except that this would be just like saying that God created sin, that he made everything good and then arranged for things to fall apart just so that he could show his mercy and grace, and that would make God seem a little manipulative. The Bible, though, makes it clear that God is good. Psalm 107:1, 1 Timothy 4: 4 and James 1:17. I'll put those in the show notes. So let's dismiss this option too. So the third option is that God made creation knowing that it would rebel against him one day, but he made it anyway. So this third option keeps to that assumption that I made that God is good and perfect. It's like having a good parent who raises a child perfectly, only for them to see their child become a rebel. Now there again. This takes us back to the original question. Since God knew that the world would turn against him, why did he ever bother creating it? This is the song that never ends. It goes on and on my friend. Now, you could have endless discussions and arguments over this and it would be hard to come up with an answer that would be acceptable to most people, but a little reading had me find three points that seemed logical and really reasonable about the most important consistent parts that we know about God. They aren't "finger quote answers to the question, but may be more as perspectives that help me address the question. You can be the judge. Okay, the first one is that he did it because it shows God's glory, love, mercy and grace. But this sounds a bit like option two from above, but with one difference God didn't make the fall of man happen, because that would mean that he made man sin, although he knew that he would sin. But he allowed it to happen so that we could see his glory and experience his grace and mercy. The Bible tells us that God's ultimate purpose in everything is to have his son rule over everything, so that he, the Father, would be glorified. So I'm going to read Ephesians 1: 8- 10. With all wisdom and understanding, he made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure, which he purposed, in Christ, to be put into effect when the times reached their fulfillment, to bring unity to all things in heaven and on the earth under Christ. It would be hard to fully define what God's glory means, but it includes his greatness and all his attributes, you know holiness, justice, love, mercy and grace. All of those were manifested through the story of creation. Through the creation of the world, we see God's greatness and power. Through his judgment of sin, we see his justice and holiness, and though Christ's redeeming work on the cross, we see the Father's love and mercy and grace. So you could say that allowing mankind to make that choice to obey or rebel against him served God's purpose. Then we might beg the questions could God's glory have been manifested if he had not allowed the world to rebel against him? Couldn't he have been glorified in another way? In other words, did God need the world to fall to show his glory? That question is very hypothetical and you can't really come up with an answer that satisfies. We could become what's the word? We could become indignant and demand to know why God didn't show his glory another way. But we'd also have to remember that he didn't make man sin. It was an Adam and Eve who chose to disobey God themselves and because of it and what happened later, we got to see and understand God's holiness and justice and experience his love and his grace. So, number two, he did it because he wants a relationship with us. If you think about it now, God really didn't have to create the world or us. He's a very self-sufficient and complete God. He doesn't need a world to support him and he doesn't need anyone to keep him in power. God isn't even lonely. The Holy Trinity is, after all, made up of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Yet God made man because he wanted to have a relationship with us. He could have stopped at creating the universe, the earth, the plants and the animals, and he could have had a nice two-day weekend, but he went on to the sixth day to make man. How is man different? Well, first of all, we're created in his own image. That's from Genesis 1:27. Unlike the other creations, we have some of his attributes. That enables us to relate to him in a way that other creations can't. God doesn't need us to keep him company, but he wants to enjoy our company. In Genesis 1:31, after making man, God noted that it was very good. Note all the previous days, it was merely just, good. So why did God create the world, even though he knew it would go south? Because he desired a loving relationship with man and was ready to be patient, forgiving and merciful when man failed. Now compare that to a couple who have a child. They already have each other for company, but they desire the companionship of an addition to the family and, even though this child is going to be bad, sometimes flawed, rebellious, the hope of the joy that this child brings is worth the heartbreak and the pain. But of course, here's where we could ask so why didn't God create human beings that couldn't sin? Why did he give them a choice? Because free will is needed for love. So I have a question why does a couple choose to have a child and not a robot? That's an easy answer. The robot won't love back. Unless you've seen the movie AI, which I like but makes me sad for hours after I finish watching it. A relationship is meaningful not only when it goes both ways, but also when either of the two chooses to stay in it. This can't be forced or controlled, because then it would be like slavery or forced loyalty. So my pastor just preached on the parable of the Prodigal Son. So it's still fresh in my mind and I'm sure that he'll be happy that I remembered something that he said. Do you remember why the father of the prodigal son was so happy to see his son return? I'll put Luke 15: 11- 24, in the show notes. He was so happy because the son had, on his own, chosen to repent and return to his father. The father had not forced or bribed his son to come back. That was what made his son's repentance and love even more valuable to him. He chose to go back. That's why God calls us his children and not his servants. If he had made man in a way that we had no choice but to obey him, our love and our loyalty would not mean much to him. God wanted us to decide for ourselves if we wanted to love him back. So he made us with a free will and we get to choose whether to follow his instructions or not. So that also kind of explains why God put the tree of knowledge of good and evil in the Garden of Eden in the first place. That comes from Genesis 2: 17. Now that's one question I've always had. Why did God have to put that tree there? I always felt like he was tempting Adam and Eve. I mean, didn't he know that they would eat from the one tree they weren't supposed to? Some Bible teachers try to say that the tree represented the choice that God was given to them. It was like he was telling them. In case you complain that you don't have a choice but to obey me, here's an option you can take. I'm making it clear that I don't want you to take it, and I actually forbid you to eat from the tree, but the decision is still yours. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil was a test. Now, if we argue that God was being unfair by putting this temptation in the Garden of Eden, think about this. there must have been thousands of fruit trees that Adam and Eve could have eaten from, but they had to eat from the one tree that God said to avoid... Freakin' children! I read a book years ago I can't remember the name, sorry. It had a story in it about the day that God created earth. It said something like like God was putting a "seed of choice into a lump of clay that he's going to bring to life. And there's an angel that's watching God do this. And he asks him why he was doing it. And God answers him by showing him the future. The future where man is going to rebel and forget what God told him. And God answers him and says wouldn't it be easier if I didn't plant the seed? Wouldn't it be easier to not give them a choice? And the angel is like, uh, yeah. And God says if I remove the choice, I remove the love. So I guess it comes down to trusting God's character. If you're still not 100% convinced, I don't blame you. It's hard to wrap our heads around an issue that can be so illogical and make you say a bunch of what ifs. Every answer leads to 10 other questions. The bottom line is we're talking about an issue that's beyond our comprehension. Now here's where I use scripture to answer. It comes from Deuteronomy 29, 29. The Lord, our God, has secrets known to no one. We are not accountable for them, but we and our children are accountable forever for all that he has revealed to us, so that we may obey all the terms of these instructions. And by answer I mean it's impossible to understand some of God's actions and decisions. But I believe that these three perspectives do offer some measure of logic to understand why God still went ahead with the creation, knowing what would happen. They may not all be pretty and line up like an algebra equation, but they help us to see what God did was really consistent with his purpose and his character. I guess it's kind of like trying to get a grips with your decision that a good friend has made, but you don't understand why he's doing it. You may not be fully convinced that he's doing the right thing. But what you can do is try to see the situation from his point of view and understand where he was coming from for him to make that choice, and if you know him well, you can trust that the choice he made is consistent with his character and that he knows what he's doing. So with that, I apologize to everyone who silently suffered watching me marry that woman. Trust me, I suffered the most. As far as creation, I think it comes down to just accepting that God's actions come from his being good and loving and perfect. Those are the assumptions I made in the beginning and I still do. No matter how illogical some of his actions seem to be, there's no possible way for our minds to fully understand why God created humans. God is all-knowing, all-powerful. God is totally impartial and his love tells me that he would be in the best position to know what kind of world would be best. When you take time to understand the Bible, you'll see a pretty consistent picture of God's moral perfection when it comes to His choice to create humans. Well, guys, that's all for this episode of the Renewed Mindsets podcast. I hope you're not leaving more confused than when you started. I suppose we should all just trust that God does know what he's doing. And remember there's nothing wrong with asking questions, even crazy, open-ended questions like this, as long as it's something about God. We don't really care what other people think. Anyway, there's nothing like kicking back having a beer in watching fundamentalists lose their minds. Have you watched the news lately? And they say we've lost our minds. I had so much fun making this episode and I'm excited about the upcoming ones too. If you've missed any of them, you can catch up at our website, at RenewedMindsets. com. We're also listed on Apple Podcasts and Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. And while you're on the website, send me a voice message. If you enjoy this show, do me a favor and send a link to someone you know that might enjoy it. I believe these messages are needed in the world and God gets all the glory Until next week. I'm Rick. I love you. See ya? The intro and outro music for the Renewed Mindsets podcast is the song Are you Ready by Floodgate From the album Are you Ready. Copyright 2002, Offbeat Ministries Inc. Floodgate can be found on Apple Music and iTunes. Music used with permission. And now Deep Thoughts by Jack Handy from Rick Yuhas. I can picture a world without war, a world without hate, and I can picture us attacking that world because they'd never expect it.