Manure And The Problem Of Evil Series

The movie Forrest Gump addresses a lot of life’s issues including the problem of evil. Take a look (show Lt Dan against God; www.youtube.com/watch?v=jc374YQAjJg, stop at 48 second mark right before Lt. Dan starts using foul language).

Lieutenant Dan had lost both legs in Vietnam and was embittered toward life and God. So here he is shaking his fist at God during a hurricane.

That’s what suffering does to some people. They scream at God like Lieutenant Dan. Many more just decide to push God or his church aside.

It is an age-old conundrum. Either God wants to stop suffering but cannot—which means God is really not all powerful. Or else God could stop suffering but chooses not to—which means God can't really be all loving and good.

Randy Alcorn, in his book If God Is Good says, “More people point to the problem of evil and suffering as their reason for not believing in God than any other—it is not merely a problem, it is the problem.”

A Barna poll asked, “If you could ask God only one question and you knew he would give you an answer, what would you ask?” The most common response was, “Why is there pain and suffering in the world?”

You will not get far in a conversation with someone who rejects the Christian faith before the problem of evil is raised. Pulled out like the ultimate trump card, it's supposed to silence believers and prove that the all-good and all-powerful God of the Bible doesn't exist (Randy Alcorn, If God is Good, Multnomah Books, 2009, page 15; www.PreachingToday.com).

So, what do you say to such people? How do you address the problem of evil? Well, if you have your Bibles, I invite you to turn with me to the Gospel of Luke, the Gospel of Luke, chapter 13—where Jesus addresses the problem of evil.

Luke 13:1 There were some present at that very time who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices (ESV).

Jesus is on His way to Jerusalem to deal with the problem of evil on the cross. That’s when some people ask Him what He thinks about Pilate, who killed some Galileans while they were worshipping in the Temple in Jerusalem. He mingled their blood with the blood of their sacrifices.

Warren Wiersbe suggests that “the atrocity… may have taken place when Pilate ‘appropriated’ money from the temple treasury to help finance an aqueduct. A large crowd of angry Jews gathered in protest; so Pilate had soldiers in civilian clothes mingle with the mob. Using concealed weapons, the soldiers killed a number of innocent and unarmed Jews (Wiersbe, The Bible Exposition Commentary, Victor Books, 1996).

It was a horrible tragedy not unlike the recent shooting at the Annunciation Catholic School in Minneapolis. There, a gunman shot through the windows of a church while the children were praying, killing two of them and injuring 20 others (Fox News, August 27, 2025).

What can you say about such senseless tragedy? What did Jesus say?

Luke 13:2-5 And he answered them, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered in this way? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them: do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish” (ESV).

The assumption was that those who perished in these tragedies were worse sinners than the rest. That’s how most people in Bible days answered the question about the problem of evil—Evil exists because God is punishing people for their sins. That’s what Job’s friends said about him: “You’re suffering because you sinned,” even though God had declared him righteous. And that’s what the crowd said about the man born blind in John 9: “Either he or his parents sinned,” to which Jesus said neither had sinned. Even so, the people in Jesus’ day believed that suffering was the direct result of sin, every single time, period, full stop.

But Jesus has a very different answer to the problem of evil. Instead of asking yourself, “Why me? What have I done to deserve this?” Jesus forces his audience to ask, “Why NOT me,” because all of us are sinners deserving death. Or as He puts it, “Unless you repent, you will ALL likewise perish” (Luke 13:3,5).

Don’t forget the context of this account. Jesus is on His way to the cross to deal with the problem of evil in the world. There, He will bruise that old serpent on the head, fatally wounding him, and there, He will purchase our redemption from the evil in our own hearts.