Chapter 13 The Third Entity

Page 157 How can a loving God allow such atrocities? How can an all-seeing Father allow His children to walk into the pits of hell? How can a God who is considered good withhold His intervention at the time you needed Him the most?

-Have you ever asked these questions or have others asked these questions to you?

-Why are these questions so hard to answer?

Page 158 This life is not fair, and neither is God. The lyrics of a Sara Groves song say, "I keep wanting You to be fair. But that's not what You said. I want certain answers to these prayers. But that's not what You said." 20 A fair God would always return evil for evil and good for good. Ya know, the ol' eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth deal. A fair God would make the rapist break his ankle as he fled from the site so that he would get caught. A fair God would allow the drunk driver to have brain damage instead of the innocent father of three. A fair God would let the murderer get stricken with stage 4 cancer instead of the young thirty-year-old. A fair God would have continued to protect the grandfather who made it through the triple bypass surgery remarkably and prevented the blood clot that killed him a month later. A fair God would have stopped the cancer, prevented the accident, healed the good guy, trapped the bad guy, and been there when you needed Him? Do you think it is accurate to say God is not fair?

-What is the difference between fair and just?

-Can you think of any biblical examples when God seems unfair?

-What's the difference between fair and just?

Page 159-160 If there was a loving God, and this loving God was the Christian God I had been worshiping, then why would this loving God refuse to intervene at the time I was so desperate for His intervention? If this Christian God was truly loving (despite feeling quite the opposite), how could I reconcile following a God who says He loves me but who allows such agony?

-Why do you believe God withholds intervention when we are desperate for Him to fix things?

-Did God withhold protection and relief from Jesus? If so, what can we learn from this?

-What can we deduce about God's character? Is this consistent with scripture?

Page 160-161 Read the prayer journal entry and the subsequent paragraph.

-Do you see the third entity at work? How?

-Do you think God is doling our hardship or do you think it is a consequence of living in a sin bent world?

Page 162 Since God is stuck in this conflicting position, He must enact justice while enacting love. Key to this conflict is humankind's free will. God does not want love given to Him out of obligation or duty, but rather He desires freely given love.

-Why is freewill key to understanding the holiness and love of God?

-How does God's holiness effect His love for us?

-How does freewill impact God's intervention or lack of intervention?

Page 163-164 Since God is just, He does have wrath in response to sin... Now, thankfully, Jesus was a propitiation of the wrath of God. By that I mean Christ became the atoning sacrifice, the appeasement and satisfaction for the wrath of God. Since God is holy He requires holiness, which a sinful human race was unable to accomplish. So God made a way, through the death of Christ, to satisfy His wrath so that those who are covered by the blood of Christ will receive only God's grace, love, and forgiveness. This allows God to do what He's been desiring to do since the Garden of Eden—be close to us, and in return for us, those who accept His offer of forgiveness, to be close to Him.

-Does God still have wrath? If so, who or what is it towards?

-How do we avoid His wrath?

-How does the concept of God's justice reconcile His wrath with His love?

Page 164 When Adam and Eve caused the upheaval in all of cosmology, God was placed in a position in which He must enact justice while also bestowing love. He is just, but He is not fair in the sense that He does not treat us as our sins deserve. So although He doesn't strike the murderer down with lightening, He also withholds His "fairness" towards us—for our vulgarity He should burn our mouths; for our eyes observing unwholesomeness, He should blind us, etc. His "unfairness" can be a rather convenient thing, when we realize that He provides us with grace rather than balancing of the scales. Sometimes double standards aren't so bad after all.

-Have you ever wanted God to be fair but instead He was just? Were you grateful or upset?

-How does this change your perspective on God's character?

Page 167 God is the giver of life, the giver of every good thing. James 1:17, "Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights." He is not the giver of death, nor the giver of every bad thing. That becomes the role of the third entity, life, and more importantly the role of Satan, the thief. The one which John 10:10 says has come "only to steal and kill and destroy."

-Do you believe it is true that God is not the giver of death or bad things? Why or why not?

-Do you blame more things on God or Satan?